BLOODLETTING AT CBOT SIGNALS PUBLIC OFFERING

https://www.freemarketnews.com ^ | Jan 07, 2005 | Neal Weintraub

[FreeMarket1]

Jan 07, 2005 - FreeMarketNews.com

by Neal Weintraub

FMNN Trading and Futures Correspondent FMNN EXCLUSIVE - released to Reuters, AP, Bloomberg for at-will pick up

FreeMarketNews.Com, Jan. 7, 2005 - There have been plenty of reports that the Chicago Board of Trade is readying a public offering. Now an apparently sizeable layoff of senior staffers in December – possibly with more to come - leaves little doubt the CBOT is probably going public sooner rather than later.

A CBOT official declined comment when contacted - and referred another official who did not return calls. However sources familiar with the proceedings said that the December bloodletting was aimed at a group of top-level staffers with up to 20 years of experience. One of the reasons: "Strategic adjustments before going public.”

“If this is the price we have to pay to go public then who wants it,” said one former CBOTer aware of the layoffs. “Firing dedicated people to goose the bottom line is wrong, no matter where it happens. It’s kind of a like a sacrificial prelude to the IPO.”

The source added: “This is the kind of thing that used to happen on Main Street, and it’s difficult for people who have worked long and hard hoping for a retirement. Part of the logic may be the fewer senior staffers, the bigger the slices of pie for those who are left.”

The layoffs are said to be the second or third recent round for the CBOT which apparently made cuts last year among senior ranks so as to hire more junior level staffers with IT experience.

Recently BusinessWeek reported: “The hoary old CBOT, sitting in its 73-year-old Art Deco tower in Chicago's famed Loop, even slipped behind its more computer-savvy longtime rival, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The problem: The CBOT's members resisted the move to computerized trading, preferring the loud and colorful pits, even while corporate customers and other traders flocked to screen-based trading.”

All that may be about to end now. These layoffs – and there yet may be more - could well put paid to a long, glorious, clubby and increasingly controversial chapter in Chicago’s futures industry.

..... Read the full article Freemarketnews.com

Neal Weintraub is a former marketing manager for the Chicago Board of Trade and founder of the Center for Advanced Research in Computerized Trading which offers seminars on day trading and international arbitrage. He is a floor trader and registered floor broker and his current book "The Weintraub Day Trader," is being followed by a book and a video, "Tricks of the Floor Trader" - available with a study guide.

[mlbford2]

I hope it doesnt' affect the MiniDow Futures quotes because they laid off too many IT folks. That's my bread n' butter.