France worried about Deutsche Boerse, LSE deal

PARIS - The US$30 billion planned merger between London Stock Exchange Group and Deutsche Boer­se raises potential competition concerns, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Friday.
The words echo those of Economy Minister ­Emmanuel Macron in February, but they come from the man who is in charge of banking and financial industry issues in France, and raise questions about the potential impact on the European economy.
The proposed merger would create a group similar in scale to US exchange ICE, which has taken huge slices of Europe’s derivatives markets, and would leave smaller European competitors such as Euronext Paris far behind.
“I want to express the concern of the French government on this tie-up,” Sapin said in a statement emailed to Reuters by his spokesman. “We have doubts about the consequences this could have for the financing of the real economy in France and Europe.”
“The merger of these two entities will result in a large group which could hold within it a majority of the tools that make our markets function efficiently. That poses a competition problem, and we want to make sure the European Commission gets involved to avoid a situa­tion where a dominant position arises.”
- Nampa/Reuters