纽交所如何打赢跨国联姻保卫战

    纽约证券交易所（New York Stock Exchange）与德国证交所（Deutsche Boerse）的超大规模合并价值高达170亿美元。虽然该交易似乎已经胎死腹中，但其实仍然一息尚存。这两家证交所官员还有不到三周的时间，来说服欧盟高层，承诺合并后的证交所不会像反垄断的技术官员们所担忧的那样，带来垄断威胁。如果两家证交所有意采取一些政治手段，继续对其最大的竞争对手——大型银行——施压，那么此次交易仍有起死回生的希望。

    说服美国和欧洲的管理者接受史上规模最大的交易所合并绝非易事。但一年前，在纽约证交所与德国证交所宣布合并之前，两家公司的高管就成功地淡化了监管风险。他们相信，大洋两岸的政府官员们最终会认识到，证券交易所日益全球化，不能再只局限于某些特定的行业领域。纽约证交所信心满满地认为，交易肯定能够通过监管审查，它甚至成功击退了美国竞争对手芝加哥商业交易所（CME Group）和洲际交易所（IntercontinentalExchange）更具吸引力的收购要约。

    然而事与愿违，虽然美国的反垄断官员忍住了心头的民族主义自豪感，在12月份批准了两家公司的合并计划，但欧洲的相关官员仍然反对这笔交易。周三，纽约证交所首席执行官邓肯•尼德奥尔在发给员工的视频中称，欧洲反垄断官员将建议欧洲各国部长阻止此次合并。尼德奥尔表示，欧洲的反垄断官员根本不了解证券交易领域的竞争形势，并称纽约证交所将欧洲反垄断官员的决定斗争到底。

    虽然欧洲反垄断部门的意见没有约束力，但却对最终批准合并的欧盟执行机构具有重大影响。欧洲的反垄断部门不能接受这样一个事实，即合并后的证交所将控制欧洲交易所交易衍生产品市场93%的份额。证交所官员拒绝为了满足监管机构的要求而拆分其衍生产品部门，因为此举将抹杀合并带来的经济效益。虽然他们同意放弃股票衍生产品业务，并保证合并后的三年内欧洲衍生产品交易的相关费用维持不变。但这些还不够。

    这笔交易看起来似乎无望，但仍有挽回的余地。之前曾经有过少数个案，欧盟执行委员会并未理睬反垄断部门的建议，而是开了绿灯。例如，1997年波音公司（Boeing）收购竞争对手麦道公司（MacDonnell Douglas），以及2010年甲骨文公司（Oracle）收购太阳微系统公司（Sun Microsystems）。

    为了进行最后一搏，纽约证交所与德国证交所还有多种方式可以选择。2月1日，欧盟执行机构将召开会议，讨论这宗交易。届时，他们需要争取几位欧盟部长，针对反垄断部门的意见投出反对票。会议召开之前，两家证交所需要抓紧时间游说每位部长。

    与许多关注该项交易的分析师的观点一致，两家证交所都认为合并后的证交所无法实际控制欧洲的衍生产品市场。原因在于，欧洲的衍生产品交易中，有85%实际上是场外交易。所以，尽管合并后的新证交所将控制欧洲衍生产品交易所93%的交易份额，但如果算上场外交易，它在衍生产品总体市场所占比重仅为15%。

    The $17 billion mega merger between the New York Stock Exchange and Germany's Deutsche Boerse may look dead, but there's still a pulse. Company officials have just under three weeks to convince top leaders in the European Union that the combined company won't be the monopolistic menace that anti-trust technocrats fear. The company could possibly revive this deal if it is willing to play a bit of politics and go on the offensive against its largest competitors: the big banks.

    Selling the largest exchange merger in history to regulators in the U.S. and Europe was never going to be easy, but the NYSE and Deutsche Boerse executives managed to downplay the regulatory risk when they announced their deal nearly a year ago. They believed officials on both sides of the Atlantic would recognize that the exchange industry had gone global, making concentrations in certain business lines irrelevant. The NYSE was so confident that the deal would pass regulatory scrutiny that it even successfully fought off a stronger bid for the company from U.S. rivals the CME Group (CME) and the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE).

    But things didn't go as planned. While U.S. antitrust officials swallowed their nationalist pride and approved the merger in December, their European counterparts remained hostile. On Wednesday, Duncan Niederauer, the chief executive of the NYSE (NYX), told employees in a video message that European antitrust officials were going to advise European ministers to block the merger. Niederauer said that the antitrust officials didn't understand the competitive landscape of the exchange space and that the company would fight the decision.

    The European antitrust office's opinion is non-binding, but it does carry significant weight with the EU executive body, who ultimately approves mergers. The antitrust office just could not get over the fact that the combined company would control 93% of the exchange traded derivatives market in Europe. Company officials refused to spin off their derivatives units to appease regulators as it would erase the economic benefits of the merger. They agreed to offload their equity derivative business and freeze their fees associated with European derivative trades for three years following the merger. But that wasn't enough.

    The case may seem hopeless, but not all is lost. There have been a few rare cases where the executive committee disregards the recommendations of the antitrust unit and allows a merger to go through. Some examples include Boeing's 1997 acquisition of rival MacDonnell Douglas and Oracle's 2010 acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

    There are a few ways that the NYSE and Deutsche Boerse can play this last round. They will need to get several of the EU ministers to raise objections to the antitrust unit's recommendations when the EU executive body meets to consider the deal on February 1. The company will need to quickly present its side of the argument to each of the ministers before that meeting.

    They argue, as do many analysts that follow the exchanges, that the combined company won't actually control the derivatives market in Europe. That's because 85% of derivatives trading in Europe is actually done off exchange in the over-the-counter market. So while it is true that the combined company would control 93% of exchange-traded European derivatives, those only add up to 15% of the total derivatives market when factoring in all those OTC trades.