(Telestock) – General Company (SocGen), French banking giant, will no longer be a member of the iconic trading floor – known as “the Ring” – of the London Metal Exchange (LME) starting from August 27. The stock exchange, the most important in the world for non-ferrous metals, said this in a notice to participants, according to Bloomberg.
SocGen will therefore move from being a Category 1 member, which allows open-outcry trading floor activity, to Category 2, thereby continuing to serve clients as clearing member of the exchange.
This will leave only seven members on the floorfollowing the previous resignations of other dealers. The ring reopened in late 2021 after 18 months of closure due to the pandemic, although volumes are now much lower due to the shift to fully electronic pricing and a change in some rules.
LME (part of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing group) has previously said that will consider closing permanent trading floor if there were fewer than six members and the remaining members account for less than 75% of historically traded volumes. “LME confirms that none of these Ring price liquidity criteria have been met following this announcement,” it said in today’s notice.