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Business Roundup: Europe European Roundup Stock Exchange merger definitely a maybe. The plot thickens. La Poste.com. Denmark rejects single European currency. By: Mark English Stock Exchange merger definitely a maybe. The plot thickens. Just as the vote looked set to be delayed on the merger of the British and German stock exchanges another few spanners have been thrown into the works. At the start of the week much of the talk was about delays with major shareholders in the London Stock Exchange such as Garban Intercapital reportedly planning to vote against the merger. A survey by British newspaper The Independent on Sunday also suggested the vote would be tight with only 59.1 percent in favour of creating the new exchange called iX. Even the Chairman of the London Stock Exchange, Don Cruickshank admitted there could be a delay in going to the polls. But a few days later his comments became academic when Swedish company OM Gruppen launched an £822 million hostile bid for the British exchange. As if that wasn't enough, Euronext, the company being formed from a merger between Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels stock exchanges, also appears to be interested in the London Stock Exchange. It has already approached the LSE in spring this year with a fifty-fifty merger proposal which was turned down. La Poste.com. It could almost be confused for being the last post but it would appear the French mail deliverers are realising the benefits of the Internet. Despite a whole host of companies world wide embracing the ease (most of the time) of delivering information by the net, the French Post Office has been holding off, until now. But despite being late into the net arena, the state run organisation is hoping to steal a march on their European counterparts by offering permanent free e-mail to French householders. A network of machines will be installed at Post Offices up and down the country to allow everyone access to their e-mail accounts. But even with these options to tempt users there is still no apparent solution to the problem of popular names going first. This probably means there will be jacques573@laposte.net before too long. Denmark rejects single European currency. Denmark has voted to reject membership of Europe's single currency. With all of the votes counted, 53.1 percent of voters rejected membership of the euro, and 46.9 percent voted in favour of adopting it. This came as a bit of a surprise to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation who carried out a survey just days before the September 28 referendum. The survey found 45 percent in favour of the currency and 36 percent against. A similar poll carried out following a television debate saw the number in favour rise to 51 and the 19 undecided in the first poll dropped to just nine. The rejected vote almost mirrored the results of a 1992 referendum when Danes rejected the Maastricht treaty - the blueprint for monetary union. That vote prompted a crisis in Europe and caused panic inside the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Mark English is the Galt Global Review's European Correspondent. © Copyright 2001. Galt Western Personnel Ltd. Unless otherwise specified, you may reprint this article, quote from it, use it in research or projects, duplicate it or distribute it. Credit of authorship and source MUST be given to galtglobalreview.com. Ownership of Copyright remains with Galt Western Personnel Ltd.     Return to Top      Business News / Business Roundup - Australia / Canada / Europe / United States / Careers / Classified / Information Technology / New Technology / Education News / World Facts / Book Reviews / Archives/Research