Eurex Announces Push To Further Develop U.S. Presence - Talks With Potential U.S. Partners - Parent Companies Support Strategic Direction

The international derivatives exchange Eurex confirmed on Wednesday that it is in discussions with a number of U.S. exchanges over a partnership to further develop its U.S. business. Any resulting agreement would call for the partner exchange to take a stake in Eurex US, Eurex’s exchange subsidiary in the U.S. The announcement comes after approval of this strategic direction from Eurex’s parent companies Deutsche Börse and SWX Swiss Exchange and a subsequent decision of the Eurex Supervisory Board.

Eurex currently distributes approximately 25 to 30 percent of its global benchmark futures contracts into the United States, including its benchmark fixed income and index products Euro-Bund Future and futures on the DAX and Euro STOXX 50 indexes. Additional volume growth in these products has been realized through an extension of U.S. afternoon trading hours on Eurex. Trading hours for key Eurex products were extended in late November to 3 pm Chicago time to offer increased distribution during the U.S. trading day. Since this shift around one million contracts have been traded during the extended trading hours, with a peak of approximately 134.000 contracts on a single day.