Heads to roll at Deutsche Borse

TODAY'S Deutsche Borse annual meeting is expected to see more board-level resignations amid angry scenes.

Security will be tight at Frankfurt's Jahrhunderthalle on the outskirts of the city as the failed bid to win the London Stock Exchange has left bitterness and rancour among investors large and small.

Even though major UK shareholder The Children's Investment Fund will no longer insist on the immediate resignation of the German stock exchange's supervisory board head Rolf Breuer, several other executives are set to depart.

Manfred Zass, vice-chairman, will walk at the end of the day's proceedings. Others mentioned - but not confirmed - as ready to go are Uwe Flach, ex-executive committee member of Germany's DZ bank, Mehmet Dalman, formerly on the board of Commerzbank, and Alessandro Profumo, chief of Italy's Unicredito.

Their successors are tipped as WestLB boss Thomas Fischer, CDU politician Friedrich Merz and Theodor Baums, a business expert. TCIF will withdraw its formal motion to oust Breuer 'in a move to avoid further escalation of the dispute with Deutsche Boerse's management'.

Earlier this month, DB chief executive Werner Seifert left to end the dispute with its investors. Furthermore, Breuer said that he would resign by the end of the year, while a further three supervisory board members would also be departing.

Zass said he was resigning as vice-chairman of the supervisory board at the end of the meeting. He said at the weekend he is quitting because he does not want to be part of a board which is 'kept on a short leash by short-term oriented hedge fund shareholders'.

TCIF holds around 8% of DB shares. The hedge fund is reported to have secured support from investors representing around 35% of shares in opposing the exchange's proposed bid for the LSE.

Tomorrow's meeting also takes place against the backdrop of an inquiry by Germany's financial regulator, BaFin. The watchdog said it may still take several weeks to determine whether hedge funds acted in concert to block DB's plans to take over the LSE and table a motion to oust Breuer.

A spokeswoman for BaFin said: 'The investigation is ongoing and is likely to continue for several weeks.'

DB hopes that it has sent out enough signals to prevent a shareholder uprising at the meeting, but no-one is entirely sure.

Christopher Hohn, chairman of TCIF - which wanted money returned to investors instead of a bid for the LSE - is expected to make a rare public appearance at the meeting.