The London Stock Exchange retained its number one spot as the world’s most successful borse in the first half of the year.

A report from Dealogic gives the LSE initial public offerings worth £16.8bn ($34bn), compared with New York’s £15.1bn ($31bn). Hong Kong trailed in third place with just £7.4bn despite its proximity to the burgeoning Chinese growth engine.

With reports that this bonanza may have peaked, especially from Russia, Michael Long, an analyst with Keefe, Bruyette and Woods, said : “There is a concern that a lot of the Russian listing is a bit bubbly.”

However, he didn’t see much sign of New York improving its relative market share on IPOs. “It’s cheaper to do them here, regulations are less complicated and strenuous, and they argue there’s a bigger international investor base here than in the U.S.”

The good times continue.

Recently we reported that London Stock Exchange chief executive, Clara Furse, attacked new rival on the block, Project Turquoise — a trading platform being created by seven investment banks — as non-viable.

Furse claimed the rival banks’ platform will not be able to compete with the LSE’s 4p fee from £1000 worth of shares purchased.

Project Turquoise responded, “We are very much on track to be up and running and reduce the total cost of trading for those who buy and sell shares”.

Soon, however, PT’s seven founders, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, UBS, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse, will be joined by another, BNP Paribas of France. Already a formidable alliance, Turquoise now looks a true heavyweight.

Final details of the technology systems to power the platform are close to agreement. If the final result is cheaper trading — and it’s hard to imagine them coming in at a higher price — this will give the LSE a real run for its money.

The kind of complacency that saw London’s Liffe passing to Euronext right under Clara Furse’s nose, must not be repeated here.

With Robert Greifeld identifying three key areas of interest for Nasdaq in the next year, a renewed bid for the London Stock Exchange seems likely. The areas are :

* Taking market share from NYSE Group.
* Fending off BATS, a new electronic stock market.
* Forging mergers and acquisitions.

It is then anticipated that Nasdaq will make a new attempt to take over the LSE before the end of the third quarter of next year.

The LSE has declined to comment on Nasdaq’s position. In return, it ratcheted up takeover rumours by claiming that it’s looking at its own “strategic alternatives”.

The Times (London) reports :

The New York market has been linked to takeover talks with both the Philadelphia Stock Exchange and the Nordic OMX market in the past week. It is understood that the talks with Philadelphia are advancing well and that Nasdaq insiders expect a takeover to be sealed within six months.

Talks with OMX, which has also tried and failed to take over the London exchange, are at a much earlier stage, but both potential deals are part of a wider strategy to boost Nasdaq’s balance sheet and improve its product offering, so that its next bid for the LSE will be more difficult to reject.

A Nasdaq insider commented, “The long-term objective is still London. This is a game of chess and LSE is the king.”

We await the new LSE moves with great interest.

The new edition of New York Magazine asks, is New York falling behind London?

As I wrote over in Syntagma, “Certainly the City — London’s world-class financial centre — is much more vibrant than Wall Street, which is suffering the dead hand of Sarbanes-Oxley regulation. The light-touch, principle-based system of the Square Mile knocks spots off New York’s draconian regime. This, almost alone, allowed the London Stock Exchange to survive a ferocious takeover bid from New York’s Nasdaq recently, simply by pointing out to shareholders that it was in a much better financial position than the American exchange. That kind of insouciance can’t be bought, only built. Very English.”

The magazine also asks, Are we no longer the world’s financial capital?