Euronext extends CEO Stefan Boznah’s term until 2027

Stefan Buznah has been reappointed as head of Euronext for the next four years, with the former M&A banker promising more deals to consolidate its position as Europe’s biggest exchange operator.

Boznah, 59, will extend his eight-year term at Euronext until 2027.

His new mandate was confirmed by the board on Wednesday, making him the longest serving major stock exchange chief in Europe. The head of the London Stock Exchange Group, Deutsche Börse and the Swiss Exchange all joined their respective companies in 2018.

Bujnah, a former executive at Santander and Deutsche Bank, joined Euronext shortly after its exit from the Intercontinental Exchange in 2015. He has transformed the size of the company by snapping up European rivals, including the €4.4bn purchase of the Dublin and Oslo stock exchanges and Borsa Italiana.

“We will work on organic projects to drive the group’s growth but we will also make acquisitions. When there are options to consolidate exchanges in Europe . . . we will do that,” Bujnah told the Financial Times earlier this week. .

Boznah said he remained open to acquisition opportunities “in post trade, in fund distribution, in data, in forex, in power”, but declined to name specific companies.

Euronext rival Deutsche Börse agreed in April to buy Danish investment management company SimCorp, valuing it at €3.9 billion, underscoring how the European exchange operator sees fund services as a new growth opportunity.

Earlier this year, Euronext launched but later withdrew a bid for Spanish fund distribution company Allfunds.

“We decided not to proceed with this acquisition because we did not like the results of our due diligence, but clearly this is an area in which Deutsche Börse has invested significant resources,” Boznah said. “It’s an area adjacent to our core business.”

Autonomous Research analyst Ian White said the exchange needed to strike a deal this year to give the market confidence in its growth. “Euronext shares have underperformed their peers over the last 15-16 months, so (Bujnah) will be looking for ways to drive growth. It’s really hard to see it coming from anywhere else,” he said.

Boojana’s reappointment will make her an influential figure in European policymaking in the coming years as Brussels seeks to strengthen and integrate its capital markets to make it more attractive to international investors.

Euronext’s top exchanges are in Amsterdam and Paris, which in recent years have threatened the London Stock Exchange’s position as the preferred listing venue for European companies.

European Union officials are considering a number of measures to reform the region’s fragmented capital markets, including creating a real-time database of stock and bond trading information and simplifying the process for companies to go public.

But Bujna called on Brussels to improve oversight of European capital markets to ensure full coverage of the bloc’s financial services.

He said the authorities should consider the capital market as a whole and include all sectors from asset managers to exchanges, not just banks.

“We need a supervision that takes into account the point of view of Europe being a continent of financial makers and not just a search engine for users and consumers,” Buznah said.

The company said Tuesday it would further diversify this year by launching a so-called dark pool, where investors can trade large blocks of shares without revealing their moves to the market. Most off-exchange locations are run by brokers and large investment banks.

Euronext on Tuesday reported first quarter revenue of €372 million, down 6 percent from the same period last year.