(October 5 – 11:30 ET) – The San
Francisco-based Pacific Exchange
has received member approval for
its plan to become the first U.S.
stock exchange to go public.
Back on September 8 the
exchange’s board voted to
demutualize the exchange.
Yesterday, the PCX’s members voted
419 to 81 in favour of the plan.
Under the proposal, the exchange
will establish PCX Equities Inc.
as a new, wholly-owned subsidiary
of the PCX. Equity trading permits
will replace exchange seats. The
equities business will be run on a
for-profit basis and will raise
money on the public market. The
PCX must still get approval from
the Securities and Exchange
Commission for its plan – which it
hopes to have by the end of the
year.
Demutualization is suddenly all
the rage among stock exchanges.
It’s already happened in Sweden
and Australia. The Toronto Stock
Exchange, Nasdaq and the NYSE have
all expressed their own intentions
to go public in the near future
too.
The PCX operates trading floors
in both San Francisco and Los
Angeles. In 1998 it traded US$144
billion on 3.8 billion shares.
It also has a burgeoning
derivatives business that traded a
total 58.9 million contracts in
1998, a 26.5% increase.
-IE Staff
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