Deutsche Boerse owners back $9.7 billion NYSE merger (Reuters)

FRANKFURT/CHICAGO (Reuters) – Germany's Deutsche Boerse AG looked set to pull off its $9.7 billion takeover of the New York Stock Exchange group on Thursday after its shareholders backed the deal to create the world's largest exchange operator.

Shareholders in NYSE Euronext approved the deal last week but it still faces formidable anti-trust hurdles on both sides of the Atlantic, analysts say.

It is expected to take until the end of the year before the politically-charged deal gets regulatory approval.

More than 80 percent of Deutsche Boerse shareholders tendered their stock as part of the deal, the company said in a regulatory statement on Thursday based on a preliminary count.

Final results of the tender offer are due on Friday.

Shares in NYSE Euronext were up 0.5 percent at $34.04 by 1753 GMT, while Deutsche Boerse was off 0.5 percent at 53 euros.

The deal -- packaged and sold as a merger of equals -- accelerates a wave of tie-ups in the increasingly competitive and global exchange world, where companies are banding together and pushing into derivatives to survive and grow.

Deutsche Boerse shareholders will control 60 percent of the new company and 10 of 17 board seats. Still there are suspicions in Germany that NYSE management will be in the driver's seat, in addition to concerns in the United States that the New York Stock Exchange will lose influence and independence.

The new company will combine the operator of stock exchanges in New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Lisbon with the company that runs the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the Eurex derivatives platform.

The merged entity will have more than $20 trillion in annual trading volume, and operations spanning the United States, Germany, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal and Belgium.

"This is important for future deals," said Richard Repetto, an exchanges analyst at Sandler O'Neill in New York.

"The global exchange consolidation movement has faced some headwinds. If this deal didn't pass the shareholder test, global consolidation would have come to a screeching halt."

The deal was first announced in February amid a flurry of cross-border deal attempts by exchanges eager to cut costs and diversify in the face of fast-eroding market shares in their traditional stock-trading businesses.

Key hurdles remain in the form of the Hessian Ministry of Economics, which needs to approve the takeover, and the European Commission which needs to scrutinize the proposed combination on anti-trust grounds.

Alex Kramm, analyst for UBS in New York, said: "This is not going to get the quick go-ahead green light, it will get a real thorough review. This is an unprecedented merger proposal but we do think that this should go through with limited remedies."

Executives at the NYSE and Deutsche Boerse have said the deal will put the merged company in a strong position to do deals elsewhere, even though other ambitious deals have collapsed.

The London Stock Exchange Group Plc and Canada's TMX Group Inc headed into negotiations, as did the Singapore Exchange Ltd and Australia's ASX Ltd.

One by one, however, those and other deals collapsed, shattered by political and nationalistic resistance.

NYSE Euronext itself was the target of an unsolicited counter-bid in April from archrival Nasdaq OMX Group Inc and its commodities partner, IntercontinentalExchange Inc. The pursuers retreated in May after being rejected by the U.S. Department of Justice over antitrust concerns.

GLOBAL VIEW

In the Deutsche Boerse-NYSE Euronext combination, stakeholders and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic fear that the other party will gain the upper hand.

The exchanges have promoted the deal as a merger of equals -- in part because of a dual headquarters agreement between Frankfurt and New York.

"Bit by bit, the world capital market is thinking less and less of the American capital market," said Thomas Caldwell, Chief Executive of Toronto-based Caldwell Asset Management, which owns shares in NYSE Euronext.

The larger Frankfurt-based bourse, however, will control 10 of 17 board positions, while its shareholders will own roughly 60 percent of a yet-to-be-named Netherlands-based holding company.

Labour representatives in Frankfurt have warned, however, the deal amounts to a "reverse takeover," in which the interests of Deutsche Boerse shareholders were not given sufficient consideration.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

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Owners, NFLPA members meet in New York (AP)

NEW YORK – Members of the NFL Players' Association executive board and team owners met for hours Thursday at a law firm in Manhattan, hoping another push could finally resolve the labor lockout that began in March.

In addition to the latest round of negotiations, a conference call involving the plaintiffs in the players' lawsuit against the league had been scheduled for Thursday, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the two sides are not announcing details of the labor situation.

The players group at the meeting included NFLPA president Kevin Mawae, while the NFL owners were represented by Robert Kraft of the Patriots, John Mara of the New York Giants and Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA chief DeMaurice Smith also joined the meeting.

Lawyers for both sides gathered on Tuesday and Wednesday to put together some of the paperwork that will be needed when a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement is struck.

Players and owners have been involved in six sets of negotiations around the country over the last several weeks, with pressure mounting to make a deal.

Some training camps are set to open in less than three weeks and the first exhibition game, at the Pro Football Hall of Fame inductions, is Aug. 7 in Canton, Ohio. Hall of Fame president Steve Perry has said the plan now is that the game will go on as scheduled.

"They are now up against a hard deadline," said Marc Ganis, president of Chicago-based sports business consulting firm Sportscorp Ltd., and a keen observer of the league's business side. "July 15 is effectively a hard deadline to make sure to get all the preseason games in. If they go beyond July 15, you likely start losing preseason games and it means less money is available overall to do a deal to satisfy both parties."

The pressure was turned up another notch with the New York attorney general's office launching an investigation into whether the lockout violates the state's antitrust laws. The players have already brought a federal antitrust lawsuit against the league in Minnesota.

New York Assistant Attorney General Richard Schwartz said in a letter this week to Goodell that the lockout will "inflict significant economic injuries statewide." The Jets have canceled their planned training camp in the small upstate city of Cortland.

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Short session: NFLPA, owners break talks for week (AP)

MINNEAPOLIS – The labor negotiating teams led by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and players' association chief DeMaurice Smith met for a couple of hours Friday and will return to the table after the July 4 weekend.

The two sides held a 15-hour session Thursday that spilled over into the early hours Friday. After taking a six-hour break to catch some sleep, the sides met again but by late morning left the office building where talks were being held.

Smith and NFL lead negotiator Jeff Pash said the players and league would be back at it next week, declining further comment. Several people familiar with the situation said the negotiations would resume Tuesday in New York City. The people all spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because details of the talks are not being made public.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan oversaw this week's discussions, which the past couple of days have included players representatives and owners.

Among the players were Jeff Saturday of the Indianapolis Colts and Brian Waters of the Kansas City Chiefs. The owners' group included John Mara of the New York Giants, Clark Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs, Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys and Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots.

Friday marked the fourth straight day of negotiations. The lockout began March 12, with the central issue being how to split revenues for the $9 billion business.

For weeks, owner and player representatives have been hopscotching around the country, holding unannounced meetings in spots ranging from Chicago to the Maryland shore.

This week began with optimism as Smith and Goodell and their staffs met privately Tuesday in Minnesota, then left the table to address incoming rookies at an orientation symposium in Florida on Wednesday morning, projecting an air of cooperation and respect.

But Friday's session ended without a deal, and time is gradually becoming a factor in the process.

Training camps start in about three weeks, with the preseason-opening Hall of Fame game scheduled Aug. 7 between the Bears and Cardinals.

There also is the wild card of a pending federal appeals court ruling in the players' antitrust suit against the league, which was filed in Minneapolis and prompted Boylan's involvement as a mediator. One judge has warned that neither side will like the 8th Circuit's decision on the legality of the lockout, but a faction on the players' side believes it is worth waiting on the court's ruling.

The latest talks came as the NBA began its own lockout after it failed to reach a new collective bargaining agreement with its players. It is believed to be only the second time that two of the main leagues have been shut down simultaneously by labor problems. The NHL and MLB were idle from October 1994 through mid-January 1995.

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Pro Football Writer Barry Wilner in New York contributed to this report.

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NBA players, owners meet as lockout looms (AP)

NEW YORK – Representatives for NBA players and owners have arrived for a meeting that could determine if there is a lockout.

The sides started their meeting about 12 hours before the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement.

They remain far apart on nearly every important issue, and owners could lock out the players if a deal is not reached by the end of the day. Or they could extend the deadline if progress has been made.

Both sides, however, indicated last week they may not have any more concessions to make, with players declining to offer a new proposal in the most recent session.

The league hasn't had a work stoppage since the 1998-99 season was reduced to 50 games.

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