According to a story published in French newspaper La Tribune, NYSE Euronext is close to acquiring AEMS’s Exchange division, which provides software to the stock exchanges in Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon, and Paris, as well as the London-based derivatives operation.
The only sticking point for the deal, according to the press reports, is price. Atos is demanding 200m euros ($297m) for the Exchange business, but NYSE Euronext has so far only offered 150m euros ($223m). Neither NYSE Euronext nor AEMS has commented on the story, while La Tribune did not reveal its sources.
Earlier this month, on a conference call following Atos’s third-quarter results announcement, its CEO Philippe Germond said the company was in talks with NYSE Euronext over the future of the joint venture, but did not go into detail about the content of the discussions.
