Spare a thought for Jürg Spillmann, head of the SWX Group, which owns the Swiss stock exchange.

Spillmann thought he was getting away from it all when he abandoned Zurich for a three-month sabbatical in the US. Instead, he's been a prisoner to his mobile phone after Deutsche Börse made merger overtures to SWX in his absence. On second thoughts, given the German exchange's record in other cross-border merger talks, he might as well relax.