NYSE members approve Archipelago deal
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-12-07 09:55

LaBranche added: "People say, 'Don't you wish things were like they used to be?', and I say, 'Why would I want that?' Seats used to cost less than a taxi medallion and 30 million shares used to be a busy day -- and I don't want to go back to that."

However, Bill Cline, head of Global Capital Markets at consulting company Accenture, thought the floor would survive in the near term, but could see a scenario "where the specialist interaction with the market ... can be delivered to investors ... in ways that do not necessarily assume the long term presence of the physical trading floor."

VOTE SUPPORTED BY 95 PERCENT

More than 90 percent of the NYSE's 1,366 members voted and of those, 95 percent supported the deal. The Exchange is due to release the final tally on Wednesday. Archipelago's shareholders also voted to approve the deal on Tuesday.

But the transaction was not without its detractors. Some questioned whether seat holders were shortchanged in the complex valuation formula and also argued that Goldman had a conflict of interest in its role as adviser to both the NYSE and Archipelago.

Thain said there were no "significant hurdles" left between now and closing the deal, which he expects to happen toward the latter part of January. The transaction has received Department of Justice approval and needs "a few things to be cleaned up" with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Thain expects the sale of membership seats to end as of December 31, and the new company to hold a secondary equity offering at the end of February or early March.

Thain said there was a feeling of "nostalgia as well of great excitement" among those who had been seat holders for many years.

The NYSE plans to call the licenses it issues to seatholders "seats" to keep the word alive. "We want to maintain still some of that feeling that this is a special place to work and that the floor is a special place," Thain said.