Bloomberg News

Environmental Financial’s Sandor Discusses Liffe Stock Futures

London, Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) – Richard Sandor, chairman and chief executive officer of Chicago-based Environmental Financial Products LLC, which designs new commodity, financial and environmental markets, comments on Liffe’s plans to introduce stock futures on individual companies from Jan. 29.

  The London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange announced the plans Friday and gave more details today.

  “Debt is a 20^th century commodity; equity is a 21^st century commodity,” he said. This is an “opportunity for London to be the center of a new kind of market.”

  “The need to transfer risk is greater than it ever has been. We have a need to transfer risk into hedge. The World Wide Web has changed things dramatically.” He said the data now accessible on the Web wasn’t available before.

Electronic markets “have perfection with regard to regulation, as opposed to open outcry markets,” Sandor said. “The electronic audit trail represents another step forward for public protection.”

James Regan in the London newsroom