Nasdaq’s 950p-per-share bid is almost twice the 580p per share that Australian bank Macquarie was willing to pay. The price, analysts say, can be justified by the large cost savings that Nasdaq could extract from technology synergies and staff cuts. The potential for cost savings is so great that analysts estimate that Nasdaq could afford to pay as much as 1,200p to 1,650p a share for the London exchange and still have an earnings-accretive deal.
The NYSE, it is thought, could make similarly massive savings.
Even if such savings could be realized, market users would be unlikely to see much of it filtering down to them as lower trading costs.
This is because a transatlantic exchange merger would do nothing to increase competition in the trading of LSE-listed securities.
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