Gillian Tett, the assistant editor and columnist at the Financial Times had a question for the CEOs of the world’s major exchanges at the Futures industry Association conference in Boca Raton, Florida: who will be on this platform in five years? Will there be more exchanges or fewer?
Jeffrey Sprecher, CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, said he didn’t expect to be back in five years, leading to some comments in the audience about retiring to an island somewhere in the Caribbean. Phupinder Gill, CEO of the CME Group, said he expected to be retired by then. Andreas Preuss, the German CEO of Eurex, couldn’t resist this opening.
CME doesn’t permit CEOs to leave, he told Gill, citing Leo Melamed, CME Chairman Emeritus who has been active in Chicago financial markets since 1972, and Jack Sandner, still on the board after 30 years of service at CME.
Then turning to Sprecher, whose latest acquisition is NYSE Euronext, Preuss said he suspected Sprecher looked forward to sitting on the platform alone, at the CEO of the only remaining exchange.
In the ensuring laughter he played to a national stereotype: “A German joke is no laughing matter,” he said.