Euronext N.V. is the pan-European stock exchange and it is located in Paris. They have their subsidiaries in Belgium, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

Apart from playing a major role in the equities and derivatives markets, the Euronext group also focuses in giving service related to clearing and financial information services.

Per statistical reports dated January 31, 2006, the market capital strength of the Euronext was 2.9 trillion USD, where it was ranked as the 5th biggest stock exchange of all the exchanges around the globe.

Euronext combined with the NYSE Group to make the NYSE Euronext, which is the “first global stock exchange” operation.

The formation of the Euronext can be dated back to September 22, 2000 which was as a consequence of the merger of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, Brussels Stock Exchange, and Paris Bourse. This was done to take advantage of the unification of the European Union financial markets, thereby creating an advantageous and uniform European Stock market.

In the December 2001 Euronext obtained the the shares of the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE), but still it continues to function and operate under its own past governance. From early 2003, all of the derivatives products were traded on the affiliated exchanges trade on LIFFECONNECT with the LIFFE’s electronic trading platform.

In the year 2002, the group joined with the Portuguese stock exchange Bolsa de Valores de Lisboa e Porto (BVLP), and it was renamed as Euronext Lisbon.

The Euronext has cross-access and membership agreements with the Warsaw Stock Exchange for the cash and derivatives products, and also with Helsinki Exchanges for cash trading; however, the ownership agreements are not currently involved in the processes.

The Euronext List consists of almost all the quoted companies. It consists of 2 segments:

• NextEconomy, whose equities are traded continuously in IT and biotechnology related fields.
• NextPrime, whose equities are traded in traditional sectors which are traded continuously.

Euronext also is in charge of managing two broad-based indices:

• The Euronext 100 Index is the blue chip index.
• The Next 150 Index is a market capitalization index, consisting of 150 largest stocks, representing of large-to mid-capitalization segment of stocks listed in the Euronext.

The NextEconomy and NextPrime segments operated with:

• Price index
• Total return index

Both of these factors are judged by the market capitalization and it excludes the shares which were listed in the Euronext 100 Index.

The base date for the indices is December 31, 2001, and the starting level consisted of 1000 points.

Six NextWeather indices were launched in January 2002, for France with the sector indices which was put forth by Euronext.

Exchange traded funds, known as trackers, consisting of Euronext’s NextTrack product segment.

Trackers were introduced on AEX index, CAC 40, Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50, and also in several other pan-European regional and sector indices.

Euronext also introduced many of the commodity futures contracts, which were made to be available to most of the traded constituents.

If Euronext and Deutsche Börse merged it would be a great force; however, attempts are not fruitful at present and it might work out in the future.