E-Malt.com News article: USA: NYSE-listed brewer Anheuser-Busch picks Paris over London

New York-listed brewer Anheuser-Busch has begun offering its stock on the Paris arm of transatlantic exchange NYSE Euronext after de-listing its shares from the London Stock Exchange on the back of low trading volumes, Dow Jones reported April 30.

Anheuser-Busch, which also has a listing on the SWX Swiss Exchange, becomes the first company to list on a new segment of the Paris market aimed exclusively at professional investors, and not the retail market, meaning it does not have to publish a prospectus in French.

A spokeswoman for NYSE Euronext said: "The company will gain access to a much wider base of fund managers, who do not necessarily invest in the US market and who value their portfolios in euros."

The US brewer announced its intention to de-list from the LSE's main market on March 31 due to low trading volumes and in a bid to reduce compliance costs. It stopped trading on the exchange yesterday.

A spokeswoman for the LSE explained that when a company lists on two major exchanges, trades tend to get routed through to the home market resulting in less trades in the stock on the secondary market.

Satyam Computer Services in January became the first NYSE-listed company to extend its listing to Euronext Amsterdam, where the average weekly volume of trading in its shares has been significantly lower than in New York.

The average weekly volume of Satyam's shares traded in Amsterdam this year up to April 25 was 3,403, compared with 7.21 million shares traded on NYSE.

However, the spokeswoman for the LSE added that for a company with a primary listing on an emerging market exchange, the level of additional trading to be gained from a secondary listing can be much higher.

The spokeswoman said: "It is very different for a company from an emerging market, which, as for example on our International Order Book, may see a significant amount of trading when they list on an overseas exchange."


30 April, 2008