Euronext Brussels

Inception and early history

The Brussels Stock Exchange (French: Bourse de Commerce de Bruxelles) was created in 1801 by decree of Napoleon. The French government at the time designated the former Augustinian monastery on the Rue Fossé aux Loups/Wolvengracht as the venue for this exchange. After the monastery buildings were sold, meetings were allowed to be held in the Theatre of La Monnaie, but when the theatre was reopened for performing arts in 1820, the stockbrokers rented a house on the Rue Guillaume/Willemstraat (today's Rue Léopold/Leopoldstraat). From 1858, a time when it experienced considerable development following the country's economic and industrial growth, the cramped and unsanitary conditions of the various premises led the business community to demand, from the municipal authorities, the erection of a new stock exchange (see below).

Challenges, mergers and relocation

On the night of 29 November 1990, a fire broke out in one of the stockbrokers' cabins on the ground floor of the Stock Exchange building, causing a lot of damage. As a result, the BSE risked losing its financial activities and its reason for existence. Though the building was neatly restored, automation and acquisitions were already bringing an end to old market practices. In July 1996, all market floor activities disappeared. That year, the cash market was fully digitalised and the daily meeting of stockbrokers and traders therefore became redundant.

In 1999, a first merger took place with CIK and BELFOX (BELgian Futures and Options Exchange). On 22 September 2000, the BSE merged again with Paris Bourse and the Amsterdam Stock Exchange to form Euronext, the first pan-European exchange for equities and derivatives, with common trading and clearing of all products, and was renamed Euronext Brussels. In 2015, this company moved away from the Stock Exchange building, which had become too large, after the lease was broken by the City of Brussels in 2012. It now has its headquarters in the Marquis building.