Chinese buy London Metal Exchange in £1.4bn takeover

Things that make you go, "hmmm."

One of Britain's last great independent financial markets has agreed to sell itself to China.

The 137-year-old London Metal Exchange has agreed a £1.4bn takeover from Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx) after a nine-month auction process which saw bids from InterContinental Exchange, CME Group and NYSE Nasdaq.

The deal will mean massive windfalls for the LME's largest shareholders, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Metdist, the metal brokerage owned by the LME's former chairman Raj Bagri's family

www.independent.co.uk...

We have the usual suspects getting wealthy, while China moves to control one of the Western world's most lively metals exhange.

Maybe the Chinese are sick of getting tungstein bars for empty promises...something to keep an eye on.

reply to post by silent thunder

The deal will mean massive windfalls for the LME's largest shareholders, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Metdist, the metal brokerage owned by the LME's former chairman Raj Bagri's family

I'm sorry but I honestly don't think the likes of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs etc etc etc would let something like this happen if it didn't benefit them or in fact been orchestrated by them unless they had control..

They don't gamble, they make things happen...

reply to post by silent thunder


They do like lots of yellow metal in china.

The prospect of China becoming the largest bullion user reflects the country's economic ascendance. Per capita gross domestic product has more than doubled since 2000, according to World Bank data. The country is already the world's top consumer of copper and biggest producer of steel.

Gold shipments to the mainland climbed for a third month in March to 62,913 kilograms, the Hong Kong data showed. That compares with 39,668 kilograms in February and 9,166 kilograms in March 2011. China doesn't publish gold-trade data. Last year, imports from Hong Kong more than tripled to 431,226 kilograms.

The purchases through Hong Kong may signal that the mainland is accumulating reserves, London-based brokerage Sharps Pixley Ltd. said in February. The nation last made its reserves known more than two years ago, stating them at 1,054 tons.

China Quietly Building Gold Reserves As Gold Imports From HK Soar By 587% In First Quarter

Maybe a quiet way of building up gold to make the yuan the next reserve currency.

hi op

it was only a matter of time before this happend
i tell you what chinese , do you want my soul?
after all we westerners practically live of your manufactured crap that does not last long
GRRRRRRR

why dont we do to you what america done to the japs, as in..
bomb the crap out of you
then pile a shed load of money rebuilding you (to ease our/your guilt)
then turn you into a manufacturing superhouse
oops disregard what i said because its utter nonsence....
take my bloody country if you want...why not
everyone else is

reply to post by SLAYER69


They certainly stand to benefit.

They benefit from any transaction that they can place themselves in the middle of. Whether its to China's benefit over that of the UK is of course no concern to them...

I will start to worry when the Chinese buy the NYSE or NASDAQ.

China manipulates it currency, and it manipulates other countries, but now they are in a position to manipulate the value over their own precious metals.

Something never would be allowed in the west people should keep a close eye on this, and it looks like a global world bubble is likely to take place.

The last refuge in a global economy and market is precious metal which has been a traditional safe haven.

Beware of precious metals now.

reply to post by neo96


It will be "interesting" to see increasing Chinese influence in other markets, you can bet its coming. You are correct that the Chinese system is very corrupt, although I'm pretty sure that the London Metal Exchange is also already quite corrupt (there have been increasing scandals about fake gold bars, mismatched serial numbers, and delivery hijinks within the last few years from that particular den of thieves). Of course there is always risk with "paper" in any form as opposed to having the real metal somewhere safe in your posessions. But when you mix in the lack of accountibility, ethics, organization, and transparency that so often characterizes the Chinese business world, you are indeed in for a whole new story.

Even a few years ago, the selling of one of the Anglosphere's biggest financial markets wholesale to the Chinese would have been unthinkable. But the UK (and America) have less wiggle room to bargain with China. The US blocked sales of some banks and an oil company to China a few years ago, but this year earlier I saw they let a bank sale go through that probably would have been forbidden by the US government a few years ago. The lines of defense against Chinese investment in the finance world seem to have been breached. A combo of greed, need, and shortsightedness in the West, I guess.

Who knows? Perhaps the Chinese will simply bypass the already-rigged exchanges and markets and set up their own systems for looting American wealth. America's leaders seem quite eager to help them and willing to make all sorts of concessions, as we learned recenty for the first time:

(Reuters) - China can now bypass Wall Street when buying U.S. government debt and go straight to the U.S. Treasury, in what is the Treasury's first-ever direct relationship with a foreign government, according to documents viewed by Reuters.

The relationship means the People's Bank of China buys U.S. debt using a different method than any other central bank in the world...

More at source (Reuters)