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Thursday, October 27, 2005

Putnam realizes some income

Today's article in the NY Post suggests that Gerry Putnam cashed in some chips in order to "to possibly buy the equivalent of a seat on the Big Board, according to filings." This brings up a couple of points:

1) Mr. Putnam realized an incredible profit on the ~100,000 shares he cashed in. He still owns 1.2 million shares of AX that would be an incredible tax burden if he sold. Also, these shares still stand to gain considerable value as the NYX deal closes and 2006 brings about the first changes of NMS.

2) Nowhere is it stated that Mr. Putnam is definitively purchasing an NYSE seat. We all know what a stringent process it is in order to gain approval for an NYSE seat -- by the time Mr. Putnam is approved, he'll be president of a company that doesn't have any seats for sale. If he were to purchase a seat -- well, that's one more vote in favor of the deal and (depending on who he buys it from), potentially one less "no" vote.

And while we tread water until the vote, here are a couple of interesting prose about the world's leading stock exchange:

An article from BusinessWeek from August 4, 1997 dubbed, "The Booming Big Board." This is worth a few chuckles: Click here.

A brief blog-post by a law professor from May 3, 2005 -- discusses the notion that indeed there could be one, unified bourse in the US: Click here

Indeed, it appears as though Wall Street is waking to the notion that buying AX is buying NYX before the glitz hits the fan.

Rest assured, the vote'll happen, the SEC'll bless the deal, and the media will be all over this story. Once that happens, $50/share will seem like a bargain!

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