Euronext flotation gets off to weak start

Shares in newly floated European stock market operator Euronext fell in early trading on Friday, dipping beneath the issue price.
Late on Thursday, Euronext set the issue price at 20 euros valuing it at 1.4 billion euros ($1.9 billion), towards the bottom of the previously announced range of 19-25 euros.
By Friday morning, shares in the operator of the Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Lisbon stock markets had fallen to 19.74 euros.
The overall French market as measured by the CAC-40 index was down 0.06 percent.
Euronext was owned by the New York Stock Exchange from 2007 until the entire group was bought by the US InterContinetalExchange (ICE) last year.
ICE has retained part of the old Euronext in the form of the London Liffe financial futures market, but has divested the rest of the pan-European group.
Euronext has ensured that a hard core of investors with 33.36 percent of the shares will retain their holdings for at least three years. These shareholders bought their shares at a 4.0-percent discount.