The Americans are preparing to gatecrash Germany’s bid for the London Stock Exchange.
Last night it emerged that the owner of the New York Stock Exchange has begun poring over the details of the proposed £21billion merger between the LSE Group and Frankfurt’s Deutsche Boerse.
Executives from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and advisers from investment banks Morgan Stanley and Moelis & Company have started ‘due diligence’.
Among those vetting the 110-page document published on Wednesday are Caroline Silver, a managing director at Moelis considered to be a leading experts in exchanges.
Deutsche Boerse and the LSE Group have pledged to cut around £350million in annual costs in three years if the deal goes ahead.
The two groups also claim they will be able to boost revenues if they join forces. But they do not specify how much and give little detail on how it will be achieved.
ICE and its bankers believe it may be a weak point in the proposed deal that they can capitalise on if they make a counter-bid.
The Atlanta-based group believes it may be able to win over the LSE’s shareholders if it can give them a more compelling vision of how a tie up between London and the US will boost profits, rather than just saving money.
But this is unlikely to be a two horse race, with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange also looking at the LSE Group.