General Meeting Approves Merger Into European Clearing House - Deutsche Börse Clearing and Cedel Complement Each Other, Cost Savings Of 600 Million Euros

On Wednesday, the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of Deutsche Börse AG approved the plans to pool the activities of Deutsche Börse Clearing AG with those of the international central securities depository Cedel International S.A. in a new company. This is the last formal step required for the merger of the two clearing organizations into the European Clearing House (ECH), which will go into operation at the beginning of next year. Deutsche Börse AG is bringing all of its shares in Deutsche Börse Clearing AG, a wholly-owned subsidiary, into the new company; and Cedel International S.A., for its part, is also transferring the assets necessary for the merger. In return, the two companies will each hold 50 percent of the shares in the European Clearing House. According to Deutsche Börse Clearing, the two founding parties of the European Clearing House are to be joined by further partners, the structure is deliberately open for this. Jürgen Blitz, chief executive officer of Deutsche Börse Clearing and future ECH board member, is convinced of the new European clearing organization's success: "The two companies complement each other. By pooling the clearing and custody services for both equities and fixed-income securities, the European Clearing House will be able to offer market participants a comprehensive range of services." Blitz said that it would also result in savings of about 300 million euros, especially in systems development. Market participants will be able to save another 300 million euros due to the reduction in backoffice complexity, among other things, over the next few years.