The integration was agreed by the boards of the three companies, which gave their unanimous approval to the mandatory reports required for the constitution of the new holding company at their meetings on 28 March, in MEFF’s case, and 4 April in the cases of AIAF and SENAF.
This agreement is subject to the approval of the supervisory authorities, in particular the Spanish Securities Markets Commission (CNMV) and the general shareholders meetings of the three companies.
The source of this important initiative for the Spanish financial industry lies in the firm commitment of the three companies to respond to the challenges posed to financial markets by the advent of the single currency; and to offer their members, clients and shareholders a better quality service consistent with the connection processes increasingly called for by financial markets. The new holding, which will be 100% owner of the three companies, is an entity with strong projection and the capacity to respond to the needs of all market agents and operators, especially as regards the creation of new fixed-income products and financial derivative instruments whose design would be more difficult and complex on a stand-alone basis.
The new holding will be in a position to offer integrated technical and IT solutions, by leveraging the huge potential and economies of scale arising from the advanced technological developments of the three companies. The result will be lower transactional costs for market members, who would eventually be able to operate with all group products through a single terminal. The new holding also ensures that the three companies and the group itself will be better positioned to compete internationally with other markets and trading platforms, and to define its strategy and possible agreements regarding future connection and merger processes.
MEFF centres its activity on the management of financial derivatives markets and of associated central counterparty clearing houses. In 2000, a total of 25,285,703 contracts were traded on MEFF, an increase of 43% over the prior year. Of this total, 22,624,093 contracts (+28%) were for MEFF products and 2,661,610 (+5.322%) for products offered by other markets with which MEFF is connected.
AIAF Mercado de Renta Fija is the Official Market for private fixed-income trading in Spain. The market recorded issuance volumes in 2000 of ?90.242 billion (Ptas 15 trillion), trading volumes of ?99.826 billion (Ptas 16.6 trillion) and had an outstanding balance at 31 December of ?78.309 billion (Ptas 13 trillion). It has 90 Members and 64 Shareholders.
SENAF.SON is an electronic Organised Trading System for transactions in public and private fixed-income securities and related financial instruments. In 2000, it recorded trading volumes of ?221.583 billion (approximately Ptas 37 trillion). It has 33 members and connections in Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and Italy.
