NYSE looks beyond Euronext merger to Asia

New York Stock Exchange chief executive John Thain says the world's biggest bourse is looking beyond its planned merger with Euronext to alliances in Asia. In an interview with French reporters, Thain said the NYSE wants to take a position in possibly Tokyo, China and India within three to five years.
For now, he said the NYSE's take-over of the pan-European exchange should be completed in the first quarter of 2007 despite rival overtures to Euronext from Germany's Deutsche Boerse.
"We have a deal with Euronext. Deutsche Boerse continues to make noise," he said.
The German group has repeatedly tried to persuade Euronext, which operates the Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Lisbon exchanges, of the virtues of a tie-up. But Euronext would prefer to be taken over by the NYSE.
Deutsche Boerse revealed Monday that it was working on statutes to run a merged entity with Euronext, although the Paris-based bourse played down the move as a technicality related to an offer that has already been rejected.
The 10-billion-dollar marriage of the NYSE with Euronext announced in June would create the world's first intercontinental market, with a total value of listed companies of about 21 trillion euros.
It would keep the NYSE ahead of its cross-town rival Nasdaq, which is pursuing its own take-over of the London Stock Exchange, Europe's biggest market.
Thain assured European investors that their companies would not become subject to onerous US market regulations as a result of the merger.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, introduced in 2002 after the collapse of energy giant Enron, has been attacked by many US business leaders as being too tough and for driving foreign companies away from taking US market listings.
According to Thain, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) "have made it very clear that there is no risk" of US regulatory oversight creeping into Europe if Euronext falls under NYSE control.
"The fears that Sarbanes-Oxley may escape the US are eliminated," the NYSE chief said.
Neither should the French government object to the deal, he said, after Paris had expressed its preference for Euronext allying with a European partner rather than looking over the Atlantic.