Letters

摘要

Your bald assertion that the merger last year of the London Stock Exchange and Borsa Italiana "has proved a disaster" is simply baseless ("Defying augury", September 6th). For one thing, I am hard pressed to think of any merger, certainly between two exchanges, that could genuinely claim to have "proved" itself within less than a year of completion. More to the point, in the case of the merger between the lse and Borsa Italiana, the key indicators augur well: we are making good progress on the integration and will shortly begin the migration of Italian equities onto the same trading platform as London. We also remain on track to deliver at least as much by way of revenue and cost synergies as we set out when announcing the transaction. In addition, the long-term potential of the Italian equity market remains exceptionally strong, as the fourth-largest economy in Europe continues to develop its equity culture from a very low base.