LSE, SGX to offer trading in each other’s top stocks

SINGAPORE/LONDON (Reuters): The London Stock Exchange has signed an agreement with its Singapore counterpart to allow the pair’s largest stocks to be traded on both bourses, increasing access for investors and boosting liquidity.

Under the agreement, LSE members will be able to trade shares of the top 36 companies listed on the Singapore Exchange. In return, SGX members will be able to trade in the companies that make up Britain’s blue-chip FTSE 100 index, the LSE said on Wednesday.

The top 36 companies on the SGX include Southeast Asia’s largest bank by assets, DBS Group Holdings, the region’s biggest telecoms company, SingTel, and the world’s biggest builder of oil rigs, Keppel Corporation.

Trading hours for the most actively traded stocks in both markets will be extended to about 15 hours a day. London stocks currently trade for eight and a half hours, while the Singapore exchange is open for nine hours.

The stocks will trade on a new “International Board” in their respective currencies, allowing companies to be quoted on a second market without the need for a separate listing.

“The launch of our International Board is a bold first step towards creating an efficient, global trading network, unconstrained by geography,” Tony Weeresinghe, Head of Global Development at LSE Group, said in a statement.

The move is the latest by the LSE to secure links with exchanges in emerging economies. Last year it agreed to help the Bucharest Stock Exchange to promote Romanian companies to London investors. It also signed an agreement to help to restructure and develop the stock exchange in resource-rich Mongolia.

The LSE said that trading of SGX-listed shares in London was expected to begin by early next quarter, while LSE-listed stocks are due to begin trading in Singapore in the first half of next year.