Hugh Freedberg, chief executive of the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (Liffe), the UK's listed derivatives market, has firmly rejected claims he is allowing a potentially lucrative relationship with Euronext, the nascent pan-European equities exchange, to slip through his fingers.

Euronext, which was formed out of the merger between the Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam exchanges, has been actively seeking a merger with Liffe as part of a deal that would have involved it buying Connect, Liffe's newly revamped electronic trading system. Freedberg said Liffe had ruled out a deal on those terms. 'Frankly, we are not prepared to be gobbled up into Euronext just because they want Connect,' he said.