Euronext, the owner of the Lisbon stock exchange, admitted being open to a merger with its great rival Deutsche Börse, in a move that could create a European market of planetary scale. The group's CEO, Stéphane Boujnah, revealed to the Financial Times that an operation of this type "would make sense", although there are currently no formal conversations between the two groups and a full merger would have to overcome significant regulatory hurdles.
Euronext manages eight European stock exchanges, including Lisbon, Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Milan, Oslo, Paris, and Athens, controlling approximately 25% of equity trading activity in Europe, with more than 1,800 listed companies and a market capitalization of 16 billion euros. Deutsche Börse, for its part, manages the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Eurex, one of the largest derivatives trading platforms in the world.
The idea of joining the two exchange groups has been discussed for decades. In 2006, Deutsche Börse withdrew an offer for Euronext and a merger attempt was blocked by the European Commission for competition reasons in 2012. In 2023, the executives of both companies discussed creating a joint venture for European listed companies, in an attempt to compete more aggressively with the United States.
About a year ago, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz publicly advocated for the creation of a large European stock exchange that can rival Wall Street, an appeal that found resonance among major market operators. Boujnah noted that the German stock market is "shallow" while the Euronext market is "deep", arguing that bringing stock markets closer together would create a single market that meets the needs of the three largest GDPs in Europe: Germany, France, and Italy.
