Frankfurt - Deutsche Boerse, the company that runs the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, is in merger talks with the New York Stock Exchange company, the news magazine Der Spiegel said Saturday.

NYSE Euronext of Wall Street is the world's biggest operator of financial markets.

A spokesman for Deutsche Boerse declined comment on the Spiegel report that its chief executive, Reto Francioni, presented a report last week to his executive board on a possible merger.

"Deutsche Boerse Group has nothing to announce," the spokesman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, adding that the company constantly reviewed options to increase the value of its assets.

"This includes regular contact with almost all the important market players," the spokesman added.

NYSE, which runs the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street, merged last year with Euronext, which operates markets in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Lisbon. Boerse had previously vainly attempted to take over Euronext.

The NYSE is the world's biggest stock trading exchange.

Spiegel said a new trans-Atlantic merger would mean enormous changes to the operations of the Frankfurt exchange, with Francioni's review suggesting New York executives would take charge of Frankfurt stock trading.

Trading in derivatives, including futures and options, would be managed from Frankfurt, while settlements would be managed from Luxembourg under the proposal.

Spiegel said the proposal was for a takeover of Boerse in two stages, with the two sides establishing a joint holding company in the Netherlands that would make an offer to shareholders to buy Deutsche Boerse from them.

In the second stage, NYSE Euronext would merge with a US subsidiary of the Dutch-based holding company.

Francioni would be given the title of "chairman" of the new company, while Duncan Niederauer, who runs NYSE Euronext, would be chief executive.

Initially, the eight-man executive board and the 18-member non- executive board of directors would comprise half each from NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Boerse. (dpa)