Borsa İstanbul will acquire the LME’s stake in clearing house LCH.Clearnet; HKEx, LME and Borsa Istanbul to partner on market data dissemination

LONDON, 20-3-2015 — /EuropaWire/ — The London Metal Exchange (LME) and Borsa İstanbul A.S. are entering into two agreements under which (i) Borsa İstanbul will acquire the LME’s stake in clearing house LCH.Clearnet, and (ii) Borsa İstanbul, the LME and the LME’s parent company Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx) will partner on the dissemination of market data.

“As the world centre for industrial metals trading, the LME is committed to identifying new ways to expand internationally and to working with strategic partners to better serve our markets. We are delighted to announce this partnership with Borsa İstanbul, and the HKEx Group looks forward to working with them on future initiatives, not only in data and base metals, but also across other asset classes,” said Garry Jones, CEO of the LME and HKEx’s Co-head of Global Markets.

Under the terms of the agreements, the LME will license LME steel billet settlement data to Borsa İstanbul, and will work with the Turkish exchange to develop future products and services for the steel market. Borsa İstanbul will also have the right to disseminate real-time pricing data from the LME and HKEx.

Borsa İstanbul Acting Chief Executive Officer Hüseyin Zafer commented: “We are delighted to initiate the start of a very exciting partnership framework with HKEx Group and LME via the present accords. Over the last year, we have been working hard at both restructuring Borsa İstanbul’s operations, as well as constructing our global linkages, through agreements in America and Europe. We are now completing these linkages through the present agreement with the premier exchange of Asia, HKEx, and we aim to build a strong business together over the coming years to serve investors and issuers. Borsa İstanbul, already the financial hub in its region, is now also truly strongly connected to the major global financial centres.”

Following this transaction, the LME has disposed of its entire remaining stake in its former clearing provider, LCH.Clearnet.

Contact details

For further information or to speak to an LME spokesperson, please contact:

Miriam Heywood
+44 (0)207 264 5538
miriam.heywood@lme.com

Kathy Alys
+44 (0)207 423 5803
kathy.alys@lme.com

About the London Metal Exchange
The London Metal Exchange, a member of HKEx Group, is the world centre for industrial metals trading.

More than 80% of global non-ferrous metals business is conducted on our three trading platforms: LMEselect (electronic), the Ring (open outcry) and the 24-hour telephone market. The world’s metal community uses the LME to trade futures, options and LMEswaps, to hedge against adverse price movements – prices which are discovered on our markets and used as the global reference.

Participants can trade aluminium, copper, tin, nickel, zinc, lead, molybdenum, cobalt, steel billet and two regionalaluminium alloy contracts. In 2014, 177 million lots were traded on the LME, the equivalent of 4 billion tonnes and $14.9 trillion in notional value.

At the close of the year, approximately 5.8 million tonnes of material was held on LME warrant in more than 670 storage facilities across 37 locations internationally.