Patriarch of the options exchange passed away

Jos Dreesens, the patriarch of the Amsterdam options exchange, passed away today. It is said that without the continued promotion of Tjerk Westerterp, the Amsterdam options exchange would never have become the overwhelming success it was, but without Jos Dreesens, the exchange would not have even existed. In fact, it was he who came up with the idea for founding the Options Exchange in the early 1970s. Boy Korthals Altes, the chairman of the Amsterdam stock exchange, to whom he presented the idea with his boss, was initially suspicious of the plan. The stock market was in a slump at the time, which is why he saw no point in following the Chicago example of setting up a separate options exchange in Amsterdam.

This meant the plan was in danger of ending up at the bottom of a deep pending tray, but a controversial article in De Telegraaf dated 18 March 1975 prevented that from happening. Although never (fully) confirmed by Jos Dreesens, it is very likely that he suggested the plan for the establishment of an options exchange to a Telegraaf journalist. Things moved along relatively quickly after that. Exchange chairman Boy Korthals Altes was increasingly in favour of the idea and, alongside Jos Dreesens, became a great advocate of the establishment of the new options exchange. On 4 April 1978, three years after the Telegraaf article, the Amsterdam Options Exchange opened in the Beurs van Berlage. After a difficult start, the new exchange gained momentum in the early 1980s. Jos Dreesens was involved from the start and, as the founder of the leading market maker company AOT (now: Saxobank), also reaped the benefits.