Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast 026

Transcript In the Exchange Invest weekly issue 26 we are celebrating a six month milestone in podcast terms but of course it's been seven long years with Exchange Invest newsletter every day.    What we're looking forward to today December the 20th: It's a Friday the last Friday before Christmas indeed the last Friday before Hanukkah as well. And of course for those of you who aren't celebrating either: The new year is looming. Welcome to our last weekly review of the bourse business of this year.  My name is Patrick L. Young, founder of Exchange Invest daily, the newsletter of the bourse business. Thanks for joining this podcast, Episode Number 26. Our weekly review coming up to December 20th. And what a week it's been even as we were approaching the end of year slowdown. No major deals as such, but one major non-deal: Euroclear have delayed their decision on their sale of a stake. As you'll recall, Euroclear is the CSD in Europe that's pretty much a duopoly alongside clear stream. They have been looking for some time at some sort of a market exit, possibly even an IPO strategy. However, it seems that either within the management or within the 62 or there / there abouts, different shareholders they have amongst financial infrastructure players and particularly European based banks. There has been some form of backroom bickering or indecision amongst management perhaps... the seven tiers of Belgian management for which Euroclear is so famous, and a fair amount of rancour one would imagine.   In terms of my argument for the future of Euroclear, I've long said it's going to be a Vienna Congress settlement, which is going to find the future way forward for this business. Looks as if that could be coming up. Certainly this is a story that's going to run and run in 2020. One stake acquisition bourse to bourse this week is Zagreb bourse, of course, they already own the Ljubljana exchange within the Yugosphere, the former Yugoslavia. The Croatian exchange have also now acquired a 5.3% stake in the Macedonian Stock Exchange. Very interesting altogether to see How Ivana Gazic's business has been expanding over the years, as well as of course, being a prime mover in the SEE Connect enterprise, which was part financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction Development, the EBRD. Elsewhere, the options exchange company Miami International, they've signed a letter of intent to acquire a stake in Mid Chains, which is another one of those blockchain cryptocurrency thingies.   Elsewhere, the bourse of Malaysia, they're revising their listing rules to support the national anti corruption agenda. Let's face it, of course, that 1MDB thing: that's been a bit of a fiasco all right for Malaysia in recent years causing a huge change of government and the return of Course of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who was in retirement for many ‘s a good year. At least if nothing else, I'm excited because I wrote an article about this time 20 years ago for the FIA monthly magazine talking about how the world would look in 2020. And I actually talked about how Dr. Muhammad would still be the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Well, at least I got something right in that particular look to the future. However, there was also great a headline I had to make a pause for breath when the Wall Street Journal alert blinked on my screen Thursday evening.   “It said Goldman Sachs in talks to admit guilt.” Gosh, I thought, this could take all of the combined hours of Christmas, Hanukkah and any other festivities looming, not just the new year that we're looking towards on the first of January, but in fact, all other New Year's right up to probably the Iranian one in the middl...