ASX & SFE Merger

ASX announced on August 13 that it would not, at this stage, be seeking formal authorisation of its proposal to merge the Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE) with ASX, following the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's decision to refuse informal clearance for the merger. "Unfortunately, the Commission and ASX have differing views on how immediate is the competition from alternative market providers - ASX believes this competition has arrived and the Commission believes it is at least two years away. "As I've said before, SFE was a complementary but not essential part of ASX's strategy. "ASX will remain focused on working to provide the most competitive and innovative services to our customers and on building shareholder wealth," Mr Humphry said. "We are next week sending a team of our technology people to work with Nasdaq to develop our proposals for co-trading ASX and Nasdaq-listed shares. We see enormous potential for companies and investors in the linking of our market to other large and liquid global markets."