OVERVIEW
SGX owns and operates the only integrated securities and derivatives exchange in Singapore, together with related clearing houses and a central depository. Under our vertically integrated structure, we provide a platform for local and foreign companies to raise capital, act as a regional centre for managing risk through our suite of Asian derivatives products, and offer clearing, settlement and depository services. Managing the entire value chain – from trading to depository – enables us to provide end-to-end services and enhances our revenue streams.

We serve a wide array of investors, including many of the world’s largest financial institutions and are among the most innovative exchanges in technological and new product development. SGX was named Exchange of the Year, Asia 2007, at the Energy Risk Awards, and The Business Times Corporate Transparency Index also continued to rank SGX among Singapore’s top 20 companies.

By establishing alliances and partnerships with other exchanges and introducing new products to meet the changing needs of the international and domestic financial communities, SGX is definitively your Asian Gateway.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
In the last 12 months, consolidation and alliances among exchanges continued to gain momentum. The merger and acquisition landscape is seen transitioning from national to cross-border and global consolidations. Exchanges are exploring opportunities to extend their product offerings and distribution, achieve scale and deepen liquidity in response to increased competition, both among exchanges and over-the-counter. The migration towards full electronic trading and changes in the regulatory frameworks in Europe and the United States also act as catalysts to the process.

In Asia, merger and acquisition activities were limited to consolidation of national exchanges as well as capital alliances in the form of strategic equity participation. There have also been active discussions on various products and services collaboration as Asian exchanges seek to compete in an increasingly globalised marketplace while maintaining their national identities.

Fuelled by strong growth of the Asian economies and the implementation of financial reforms in China, the surge in capital raising activities around the region has presented great opportunities for Asian exchanges to expand their securities markets. The increased sophistication of retail investors in Asia has also led to the growing proliferation of emerging asset and product classes such as REITs, business trust structures, ETFs and structured warrants.

CORPORATE STRATEGY
Building SGX as an enduring marketplace (Fig 1) in Asia continues to underscore our strategic direction. We are committed to serve our customers and deliver growing returns to our shareholders through three key strategic objectives:

• Strengthening our Asian Gateway proposition;
• Growing our Domestic Market; and
• Delivery Excellence.

Developing and sustaining our position as an Asian Gateway is a major thrust of our strategy as we seek to strengthen our competitive edge, both as an Asian listings platform and a risk management centre. The push for domestic growth has gained momentum with concerted investor education programmes and new product offerings targeted at the retail market. The more intense competitive environment has also compelled a sharper focus on delivery excellence as we exploit operational and technological efficiencies to develop a post-trade processing hub offering a comprehensive suite of back-office processing capabilities for market participants.