Lauren McAughtry

Announced after the EU close yesterday, the deal would see the BNP Paribas Group acquire 100% of AXA IM (amounting to around €850bn AUM) for an agreed price of €5.1bn, along with a long-term partnership to manage a “large share” of the assets of its parent company, AXA – a multinational insurance company with over €945bn AUM as of 2023. The announcement followed positive results from AXA of €4.2bn for the first half of the year, 7% better than analyst consensus expectations.

Six Swiss Exchange declined to comment when contacted, but has issued a technical notice confirming that: “Trading has been halted at 10:00 am CET until further notice due to technical problems with SIX MDDX. Order maintenance is possible. No matching occurs.” Global Trading understands from market sources that as of 10:50 am CET (09.50am BST), Spain was back trading, with Swiss names expected to resume by 11:30 am CET (10.30am BST).

“Dark trading on average accounts for approximately 10% of on-book volumes across Europe, so it’s an important part of the market to have an offering in,” said McQuoid-Mason.