German stock market operator Deutsche Börse said Monday that Reto Francioni, the head of the Swiss stock exchange SWX in Zurich, had been nominated as the German group's new chairman. Deutsche Börse said in a statement that its supervisory board would decide whether to officially appoint Francioni as the group's new chief executive at a meeting on Oct. 10. Francioni has continually denied that he wanted to move to Frankfurt, dismissing reports that he was set to be offered the position as "pure speculation" and insisting that he was "very happy" in Switzerland. His nomination was the "outcome of an intensive and tightly managed search among top managers both in Europe and the US," Deutsche Börse said.