NYSE Liffe chair to step down next month

(Reuters) - The chairman of NYSE Euronext'sfutures unit Liffe, Hugh Freedberg, is to step down next month to be replaced by Liffe director Alan Whiting.

NYSE Euronext, which two months ago was forced to drop its $7.4 billion merger with Deutsche Boerse, said in an emailed statement on Tuesday Freedberg, who became Liffe chairman in 2009, would step down on May 1 this year.

Freedberg, who was the chief executive of Liffe from 1998 to 2009, will be replaced by Whiting, a Liffe board member since 2006 and a futures veteran who has worked with the Britain's finance ministry, the London Metal Exchange, part of the CME Group, and U.S. exchange NYMEX.

NYSE Euronext dropped its merger with the German exchange on Feb. 1 after European anti-trust authorities blocked the deal over concerns the combination of Liffe and Deutsche Boerse's Eurex would have a quasi-monopoly in European futures trading.

"I am greatly looking forward to the challenge of leading the board and working closely with the management of NYSE Liffe during a period of major change and opportunity, both in derivatives exchange business and in the regulatory environments around the world, in which NYSE Liffe operate," Whiting said.

Regulators in the United States and Europe are keen to introduce rules to force the vast and largely unregulated over-the-counter derivatives market to use exchanges, which presents a huge opportunity for firms like Liffe.