London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange - Move To Electronic Trading

Move To Electronic Trading

LIFFE had had big plans to expand, and intended to redevelop Spitalfields Market in the City of London as they needed a larger building for their open outcry. With the loss of the market for their main product, Bund futures contracts, all expansion plans were shelved. LIFFE realised that, to compete, it had urgently to develop an electronic trading platform instead. It already had an electronic platform called Automated Pit Trading (APT), which was used in after-hours trading when the trading pit was closed. LIFFE now developed a new trading platform, LIFFE CONNECT, for all trading, including the exchange's range of short-term interest rate derivatives contracts. After the creation of the euro in 1999 the exchange won the lion's share of trading in euro-denominated short term interest rate derivatives - the EURIBOR contract. On Friday November 24, 2000 at 5pm, the last three of the once 26 open outcry pits were permanently closed. The design of LIFFE CONNECT made it possible for customers to choose which trading software they would use. LIFFE intended that this flexibility would encourage traders around the world to link to the exchange. And, by the beginning of 2002, customers in 25 countries around the world were trading on LIFFE. This completed a revolution in LIFFE's business: whereas traders had once had to come to LIFFE; now, through LIFFE CONNECT, LIFFE took its market to its customers wherever they were in the world.

Seeing LIFFE CONNECT’s potential, the Blackstone Group and Battery Ventures invested £44m in Liffe to finance the commercial development of the trading platform so that it could be sold to other exchanges. Liffe went on to sell the technology to three exchanges, TIFFE (now renamed the Tokyo Financial Exchange) (2001), the Chicago Board of Trade (2003) and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (2008). Early in 2001 LIFFE said that it had returned to profit. In September that year the exchange announced that it had received a number of expressions of interest in buying the business.

In January 2002 LIFFE was acquired by Euronext, joining the exchanges of Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris and Lisbon. Together with the derivative arms of the continental European exchanges it became Euronext.liffe. Some analysts say that LIFFE had to give up its independence because it had failed to embrace technology early enough. However, in evidence to the Treasury Select Committee, Euronext's chief executive, Jean-Francois Theodore, said that it was the span of LIFFE's business and its trading technology that had attracted Euronext to make its bid. "rom the very foundation of Euronext in March 2000, we said ... that the best partner would be LIFFE and the best system to work with would be CONNECT", he told the Committee on 22 January 2002. For information on LIFFE after the take-over, see LIFFE's website.