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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Tokyo Joe's Cafe / Societe Anonyme/No Pennies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sandra who wrote (40953)	1/8/1999 1:40:00 PM
From: EyeDrMike	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 119973

ASTN Article from the Philadelphia Inquirer, today....... Inquiry may delay PhilEx merger MONEY & BUSINESS: More business news By Joseph N. DiStefano INQUIRER STAFF WRITER A Justice Department antitrust probe could delay proposed stock exchange mergers for months or years, the head of the Chicago Board Options Exchange said yesterday. The Justice Department is looking into the American Stock Exchange's plan to acquire the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, as well as CBOE's planned takeover of the Pacific Stock Exchange. "Time is important to any deal," said William J. Brodsky, chairman of the CBOE, the largest of the nation's four stock-options markets. "It will take months to respond" to the Justice Department's 22-page request for documents pertaining to the CBOE-Pacific deal. In a telephone news conference, Brodsky said he had hoped to close the Pacific takeover by the middle of the year, but acknowledged it could take until "the first half of 2000" if the Justice Department fails to scale back its probe. "It's a little silly to proceed with a vote before you know where you stand," he added. The department has issued parallel "investigative demands" for information about the AmEx plan for acquiring the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and PhilEx officials have complained privately that it will take a great deal of work and time to produce all the detailed records the Justice Department wants. But PhilEx chairman Meyer "Sandy" Frucher said yesterday he remains confident the deal will eventually be approved. "This is the most highly regulated industry in America," he said. "Everything this industry has done, to the best of my knowledge, is what the SEC has allowed to be done." A copy of part of the AmEx-PhilEx merger investigation by the Justice Department states it is designed to study possible antitrust violations in the "proposed acquisition by the Chicago Board Options [ Exchange ] of the Pacific [ Exchange ] ." That statement has encouraged senior PhilEx officials and other merger advocates to believe the Justice Department's real target is the CBOE pact, which would create a market handling more than 60 percent of the nation's options-trading volume. But despite that wording, Justice Department spokeswoman Jennifer Rose said yesterday that the AmEx-PhilEx deal is just as much a focus of the federal scrutiny as the CBOE-Pacific pact. "We are investigating both mergers, and the issues surrounding both mergers," Rose said. While final terms for the CBOE-Pacific deal were set last fall, PhilEx members' concerns over their future trading rights and other issues have so far prevented a final AmEx-PhilEx agreement from taking shape. Negotiations are continuing. Is the Justice Department investigating a moving target? The competitive nature of the stock and options trading business is expected to change with the advent of electronic trading systems over the next few years, Frucher said. He said the PhilEx still hopes to adopt one such program, a bloc stock trading system designed by Philadelphia's Ashton Technology Group, pending approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ashton chief executive Fred Rittereiser said yesterday that the system has been tested by dozens of clients and has been commercially ready for more than a year,