Sir Brian Williamson, chairman of Liffe, has insisted that Liffe does not need to merge with anyone, despite growing speculation that the London Stock Exchange is lining up a deal.

Williamson said there had been no preliminary merger discussions with the LSE, and that Liffe was doing very well on its own. He was speaking at the presentation of Liffe's interim results, which showed a 43% increase in pretax profits for the first six months of the year.