Industrial and financial groups will beallowed to take a share in stockbrokers' capital when Paris
Bourse regulations are liberalized beginning next year,
Stockbrokers' Association chairman Xavier Dupont told a news
conference.
    Finance Minister Edouard Balladur announced on March 10
that the monopoly of French stockbrokers to trade on domestic
bourses will be phased out by January 1992, the date for the
creation of a unified European financial market.
    Balladur said that from January 1988, the capital of the
brokerage houses would be opened French and foreign banks.
    The minister did not specify which other institutions would
be allowed to take stakes in the brokers' capital but said that
from January 1, 1992, "access to the Bourse will be open to any
new member under the control of the Bourse authority."
    Dupont said that in opening up the capital of the 45 Paris
brokerage houses, the stockbrokers' association had "killed one
of its sacred cows."
    Association officials said Dupont would meet all the
stockbrokers on March 31 for an exchange of views on the
measures to be taken and future of the Bourse.
 Reuter
