FR2808355A1 - Online arrangement for sale by auction of identical goods, especially financial securities in an initial public offering, with each bidder bidding online in an auction with several rounds so that the received price is maximized - Google Patents

Abstract

Device comprises a network arrangement for receipt of bids, processing computer for processing bids received in each round of an auction, and arrangement for informing bidders of the amount of goods received by each bidder in the preceding round, but not the lowest and highest prices offered by the successful bidders. An Independent claim is made for a computer system comprising a server, a network and clients connecting to the server along with authentication and payments steps.

Description

<U> Technical field and prior art </ U> The invention relates to the field of electronic auctions. It relates to a method and a device or system that allocates a set of identical immaterial objects to a set of buyers by defining the price.

The invention makes it possible to improve the procedures that structure the electronic auctions for the sale of sets of very many identical goods to a large number of buyers of said goods, and in particular for the sale of financial securities to investors. The invention also falls within the field of financial techniques since it improves the process of defining the price of equity securities offered for sale by any issuer.

The invention applies in particular to the initial sale of securities during IPOs or bond issues, the secondary sale of shares, the construction of the order book on each trading day.

management of a securities issue is now conducted under the aegis of a so-called "lead bank" and a syndicate of investment, to which the issuer (company, government organization, etc.) entrusts the care to set an issue price of securities and to introduce these securities on the market, placing them with all interested customers. After obtaining the necessary mandate from the issuing company, the lead bank builds an estimate of the value of the issuing company, produces a first valuation range, builds an order book (reflecting the prices and quantities of securities requested by investors willing to subscribe to the issue of securities) and place the securities concerned with these customers, the issue ends with the listing of the security on a financial center, where will take place, from the first day of listing and beyond, exchanges of securities issued by the company concerned. This method is represented in FIG. 8. The offer price of the securities issued is thus defined by a single actor, and not by actual comparison of the offers and the requests of the package of securities concerned.

From an economic point of view, this system for managing securities issues has an advantage and a defect. It has the advantage of offering issuers the ability to raise a guaranteed fund amount (equal to the offering price of securities multiplied by the amount of securities offered by the issuer). It presents the failure to invite the lead bank to cover its risk of not finding enough subscribers to buy all the securities offered, by lowering the initial price of the securities so as to be certain that the subscription rate of the securities greater than or equal to 100%; The result is, logically, an upward adjustment (by an average of 10%) of the value of the securities introduced on the market during the first trading days. Subscribers, sellers or buyers, then discover for themselves the price that really balances the quantity of securities offered and the quantity of securities requested.

This upward adjustment effect is even more noticeable in the case of companies characterized by very high volatility, such as currently telecommunications or information technology companies (networks or the Internet). These companies have an activity whose growth rate is much higher than the general rate of the economy; this growth rate can be greater than 30%, it is for example of the order of 40% or 50% or more over a period of about a year or a few months.

In order to propose a bidding procedure that allows a priori (that is to say, provided that it is well designed and adapted to the specific characteristics of the goods sold, potential buyers of these goods, channels chosen to collect the expression requests from potential buyers) to discover a price that truly balances demand and supply, some academic writers have recently proposed the use of auctions for managing securities issues. Some companies have proposed to the issuing companies to manage any part of their issue of securities by fixing the issue price of the securities at the end of an auction through which will have been discovered a price balancing quantity of securities offered and quantity of securities. titles requested. The idea that is the same every time, is to replace the current procedure of management "administrative issues of securities by a single lead bank, which lowers the offer price of securities to hedge against the risk of too low a subscription of securities (that is to say a subscription of securities below 100%), by an auction that would allow the issuing company to sell its securities at the right price, that is to say say a price balancing exactly the amount of securities offered and the amount of securities requested.

Regardless of the shortcomings or defects of the auction procedures proposed by academic authors or by firms offering this service to issuers, the use of a standard auction procedure involves a minor defect and a major defect for the security issuers. The minor flaw is that it does not distinguish between buyers - as it is quite logical since an auction puts all buyers on an equal footing. And the use of a standard bid for the management of a securities issue prevents the issuing companies from giving certain of their customers' suppliers preferential conditions for the subscription of securities (which issuing companies often wish to interest these suppliers or customers in their results, and thus encourage them to show effective). Conversely management by a lead bank (which is not held by the automaticity of the sequences of an auction) allows it to practice discounts on the offer price, consistent corporate wishes emitting.

But a bidding process is mostly a major flaw; it offers no guarantee to companies as to the volume of funds that these security issuers will raise on the market. And this is a problem for the following reason: whether it's capital increases through IPOs, bond placements through public offerings, or selling a block of shares or bonds by an investor, the value of the securities sold is considerable. And whether for a business reason for a development need of the issuing company, no issuer can run the risk of not raising the amount of funds needed. An example of a company that can raise 100 US $ m guaranteed by a lead bank through a bond placement or an IPO of a portion of its capital can be considered. This company has the choice between, on the one hand, addressing the lead bank, and having the certainty of raising 100 US $ m, and, on the other hand, using an auction procedure that can, Although it may be worth US $ 110, but it can also pay off if it is well designed - only US $ 90, US $ 80 or even US $ 50 million. This is particularly the case if, for one reason or another, the subscribers default on the day of issue; and all companies therefore logically opt for US $ 100 m rather than US $ 110 m which can be as much as US $ 50 m.

This example shows in passing why the Treasuries of the major developed countries use auction procedures to manage their securities issues, despite the risk just described. Not only are the managers of the departments concerned not directly interested in the success or failure of their securities placement operations, but these Treasury departments raise funds on a recurring basis on behalf of states that are not at risk. bankruptcy for which a less important fundraising than envisaged during such or such placement of bonds does not constitute risk for the patrimony of the State or for the financing of these activities.

That an auction creates a risk for the issuing company, discounts a given amount of funds from the sale of its securities, makes an auction a technique in itself insufficient to meet the needs of issuers raising capital on the market . And this is probably the reason why companies continue to use the services of leading bankers, despite the known shortcomings of the "administrative" procedure of investment securities they use.

During the last forty years, the American Treasures, but for example also French or Swiss, have used auction methods. There are two types of auction procedures, but they are all unique. First of all, there is the uniform auction still used for bond issues by the US Treasury where the seller allocates all the securities at a uniform price: all bidders pay the same price for each of the securities purchased, and this price is equal to the equilibrium price of the auction, ie the price which equals the quantity of securities offered for sale and the quantity of securities requested by the subscribers. Then there is the discriminatory bid where the seller allocates the securities at the price offered by each buyer (the auction is then called "at the first price n, since each pays the price he has proposed).

The recent development of electronic communication instruments makes it possible to consider the use of multiple-round auctions, instead of single-round auctions, for sets of many identical goods. This has led to the development of multi-turn and discriminatory auction methods and systems, which charge the same goods at different prices according to the auctions made by the different buyers, or according to the opportunity cost of the buyers. In this respect, reference may be made to documents US Pat. No. 5,960,411, US Pat. No. 6,021,398 or US Pat. No. 5,905,975 or US Pat. No. 5,640,569.

The steps of an auction process according to documents are recalled in Figure 9.

However, these methods and auction systems do not fully take into account either the particular constraints of managing a capital issue, as explained above, or the drastic transformations of the global economy. an electronically driven auction process, which requires the design of a new fee auction process.

Finally, the known auctioning processes concern either situations with common information (where the value of the goods for each buyer is known to all other possible buyers) or situations with private information (where the value of the goods for each buyer is known to this single buyer). There is no known auction procedure adapted to the sale of many identical goods, the starting point is that of incomplete private information which is not completed until the auction, when the buyer is in situation competition with other buyers and effective choice. In other words, before the start of the auction, the buyers do not know the value of the auctioned goods, and they discover it only gradually, during the auction. It is indeed a well-known experience that potential buyers who participate in an auction are not exactly aware of the value of the good for which they propose to bid and that they have only - in the best of cases - a range of price in which they propose to bid. It has been said above that the current state of the art auctions was ignoring the upheavals of the entire auction process induces the use of these electronic technologies upheavals that challenge the architecture of the auction. set of an auction system.

upheavals can be summarized as follows. The cost of formulating and transmitting an auction can now be considered null or, in any case, negligible, compared to what it was when auctions were to be formulated verbally in places defined by people. physically present. Similarly, the cost of calculating and recalculating allowances and allocation prices of a set of several million capital securities in successive auction rounds may be considered as nil or, in any case, negligible, by to what it was when allocations and allocation prices were to be defined not automatically but at the initiative of natural persons and by natural persons. In contrast to what happens in auctions held in physical rooms (Drouot in France, Christie's or Sotheby's), the buyers practicing electronic auctions can no longer afford the cost of moving (or sending "an agent"): the cost incurred by bidders on the occasion of their participation in the auction has become very low, reduced to the time spent connecting to a site that records their requests.

This has two major consequences that modify the predictable behavior of bidders during the auction, and, consequently, the comparative efficiency of the auction architectures that can be envisaged.

A first consequence, which has not been identified in the literature or taken into account in the state of the art, is that bidders can, for a nil or negligible cost, revise their offers. Any multiple round discriminatory bidding process will result in the same price paid by all bidders. Indeed, as soon as bidders who know the rules of the auction start to fear to pay a much more expensive than they could pay, they will formulate at each bidding round offers at the lowest possible price allowing them to 'get the amount of desired goods, some that they are able to always revise their offers upward as soon as their latest proposal no longer allows them to obtain the desired amount of goods. In other words, if the seller seeks to charge the various equity securities at really different prices, he will himself invite the bidders to hide the value of the securities for themselves, and they will easily achieve since the available electronic instruments allow them to easily adjust their offers as the auction settles. Designing a bidding system where each elemental good is sold through a multiple-up-and-up auction (ie at the second price plus the auction bid) will not cause bidders to reveal the the true value of the securities for them - but only to formulate the same offer at the price immediately above the price proposed for the n + 1 title (assuming n titles were put on sale). The complexity of an auction explicitly presented as discriminatory then proves to be counter-productive, and more costly than beneficial for both sellers and buyers.

A second consequence is that, since bidders can bidding at almost zero cost in electronic auction systems, the seller must ensure the consistency of bidders' commitments. This point has not been noted in the literature, but fundamentally changes the structure of the auction system: public auctions involving physically present people often do not require any prior guarantee to buyers who make proposals. ; the seller (or his agent: the auctioneer auctioneer) has however the following implied guarantee: the bidders have borne a significant cost (several hours of their time) by going to the auction room - and the seller or agent presumes with reason that very few buyers consent this expense, or disutility, without a strong motivation. Conversely, electronic auctions have reduced this cost to nothing. In other words: the cost structure of buyers who participate in a bid changes dramatically depending on whether the auction takes place in a defined physical location where buyers (or their agents) meet or on an electronic site to which buyers only need to log in without having to move in person.

The only practice known to electronic auction companies is to exclude buyers who have defaulted from any subsequent auction. This is a sufficient procedure when a site sells thousands of different items each day, each of which has a low unit value. The failure of a buyer does not jeopardize the economy of the auction business, since all other sales are normally made. The phenomenon is quite different in the case of an electronic auction of several million titles - where the behaviors of different bidders depend on each other, and where the final allocation depends on the consistency of each of the bids of each of the bidders. investors. The problem is then to design an auction system which guarantees both the seller and the buyers of securities against the failure of one or more buyers after the auction, and which does not threaten the allocation and the allowance price discovered during the auction.

There is therefore the problem of finding a new process and a new securities issue management system that provides a better guarantee for issuers of equity securities while maximizing their fundraising.

<B> There is also the problem of finding a new auction procedure, specifically designated for equity auctions.

Finally, there is the problem of finding a new procedure which offers issuers all guarantees as to the consistency of the bidders' commitments, and such that in case of default by one or the other of the buyers designated by the procedure of auction, on the one hand the cost of this default is only borne by the bidder concerned, and secondly this failure is advantageous for both the seller and all other buyers of all securities concerned. <U> Presentation of the invention </ U> The invention proposes a new electronic auction process adapted to issues of securities securities.

According to the invention, the two methods, which are a priori antinomic, are related to the method of the lead banks and the auction method. The invention thus differs from state-of-the-art techniques relating to methods of management of securities issues, as well as methods used by the leading banks, as well as auction methods proposed by some academic writers and by some societies.

According to the invention, the auction is performed electronically, and implements one or more communication networks. It sequential, at the second price more epsilon and discriminatory. In other words, it is at the second price plus a predetermined minimum bid or at a price strictly higher than the second prize.

The method according to the invention makes it possible to maximize the profits of the issuer or the seller by forcing the bidders to reveal their best prices, while leaving them a profit.

The invention relates first of all to a method of electronically auctioning a set of identical goods, and in particular securities securities, for the transfer of these goods to a plurality of buyers, in which - the auction consists of several rounds, each buyer being able to revise up his demand for securities, each turn, each buyer is informed of the quantities of goods obtained by each of the buyers in the previous round, but not the highest prices possibly offered by each of the bidders on the previous round, - the price ultimately paid by each buyer for each item is higher than the price of the first rejected offer, ie equal to the second price plus epsilon, or strictly greater than the second price or higher, d a predetermined minimum bidding, at the second price.

One can further define a step, called not auction, the price ultimately paid by each buyer for each object being greater than the price of the first offer rejected by an amount equal to the step of the auction.

The invention also relates to a device for implementing an electronic auction of a set of identical goods, and in particular securities securities, for the transfer of these goods to a plurality of buyers, each buyer operating via an access terminal, this device comprising - electronic means for processing the bids offered by the buyers, receiving auction information from the different access terminals, means for informing each buyer, at each turn of the auction, quantities of items obtained by each of the buyers in the previous round, but not the highest prices possibly proposed by each of the bidders in the previous round.

Each buyer can therefore be constantly informed of the position of his own demand curve in all of the demand curves of known buyers of the machine, regardless of the price of the first rejected offer.

Storage means are used to memorize, for each buyer, the quantity of desired goods at each auction round, and to calculate, at each auction round, the minimum bid for each buyer to have the quantity of the goods. desired.

According to this embodiment, each buyer can revise upward his or her requests at each round of the auction, knowing the quantities obtained by himself and all other bidders in the previous round (but not the highest prices proposed by each of these bidders from the previous round).

The invention also relates to an automatic system for implementing an auction of a set of identical goods, and in particular securities securities, for the transfer of these goods to a plurality of buyers, each of whom has a terminal. access, comprising - a computer server, connected to the terminals of the buyers by means of communication, - said server being programmed to perform, at each round of the auction, the following operations: - receive, offers made by each buyer, - to check the acceptability of these offers, - to calculate a new price and a new allocation of goods to the different buyers, - to calculate, at each round of the auction, the minimum increase necessary for each buyer to have a quantity of desired goods, according to the new price and the new allocation.

Each buyer can therefore always have the possibility to delegate the bidder (the machine that manages the auction) the care to respond to allocations and allocation prices in succession, or to conduct his own auction.

Finally, the invention relates to a method for managing issues of equity securities, these securities being acquired by candidate subscribers, comprising the following steps a). record, for example in storage means of a computer or an electronic site, requests for subscribing securities to buy all or part of these securities, b) the basis of information that constitute these first requests formulated by subscribers build an order book define a first offer price c). transmit, by means of communication or transmission, this information to the various subscribers, indicating to them the quantity of securities that has been allocated to each and the price at which these securities have been allocated, d). to ask subscribers, by sending them a message by means of communication or transmission, if they wish to revise their requests upwards, according to the quantity of titles they have obtained and which has been allocated to them, e) .define using a calculation means, a new current price of the securities according to the results of step d), and transmit information to the various subscribers, by sending them a message by the means of communication or transmission and by indicating the quantity of securities that has been allocated to each and the price at which these securities have been allocated, f). repeat step d) g). when no longer any subscriber wishes to revise his request upwards, define the names of the subscribers designated as purchasers by the auction, and inform, by said means of transmission or communication, said designated subscribers. According to the invention, the price finally paid by each buyer is higher than the price of the first rejected offer. According to one embodiment, it is an amount equal to the step of the auction, after each buyer was able to revise upward his or her requests at each round of the auction, knowing the quantities obtained by himself and by all the other bidders on the previous round (but not the highest prices possibly proposed by each of these bidders from the previous round).

This maximizes the seller's earnings by leaving a profit to the buyers. In addition, this allows buyers to bid with the certainty that they will make a profit at the end of the auction. This rule builds a win-win game between the seller and potential buyers.

This rule differs from those that organize the current auctions of American or French Treasures for their bond issues, than those proposed by the US patents already cited above. It differs from the fundamental rule of the auction organized by the US Treasury, in that it does not charge each security buyer the equilibrium price of the auction, but the first offer price rejected, by example increased by the bid step defined by the seller; it also differs from the fundamental rule of the auction organized by the French Treasury, in that it does not charge each buyer the price offered by the buyer but the price offered by the best competitor of the buyer for this elementary quantity for example, increased by the bid of the seller of securities. It still differs from the various rules proposed by US Pat. Nos. 5,905,975, 6,026,383 and 6,021,398, in that the price paid is in no way a function of the difference between the equilibrium price. or the price of the first rejected offer and, on the other hand, the value of the goods eventually revealed by the buyer to the auctioneer; it differs finally from the basic rule proposed in US Pat. No. 5,640,569, in the analogous sense that it does not depend on any opportunity cost of the good concerned for the buyer, that is to say, in fine that it does not depend on the value of the good for the buyer, and the difference between that value and the final allocation price (which has become difficult to capture in an electronic auction where the cost of bid formulation has become negligible).

According to the invention, the successive stages of defining a guaranteed offer price, then the optimization of this price through a suitable bid, also differs from the "reservation price" technique used by the sellers, at an auction, to indicate to buyers that they accept no lower bid at a base price called the reservation price. The technique of the reservation price indeed forces the sellers to look for new buyers' fees, after the auction, there was no buyer ready to bid above the reservation price at the auction. Conversely, the technique proposed by the invention guarantees an investment price of securities (see in particular steps a - c above), and then optimizes this price (steps d - g above) the seller of securities. Therefore, there is no need to look for new buyer fees for its securities if no subscriber offers a price higher than the price of the guaranteed investment by the lead banker before the auction.

According to a particularly advantageous embodiment, each person wishing to participate in the auction must first make a security deposit, for example of an amount equal to a fixed percentage of the amount that he is willing to pay for the securities for which it bids; preferably, this deposit can be increased the buyer during the auction if he wishes.

The price and the final allocation of all the goods are therefore adjusted at the end of the auction, according to the possible defaults of certain bidders at the time of settlement-delivery payment of goods acquired, the deposit of security made by each bidder having defaulted then being paid to the seller. This device distinguishes the system according to the invention bids of all known systems. Taking into account the complete modification of the auction process economics induced by its implementation in an automatic electronic processing system, this embodiment makes it possible to warn the seller and all the buyers against a failure of one of the bidders. at the time of payment. In addition, in the event of the default of one of the buyers designated by the auction, it is thus possible to rectify the allocation and the price of allocation of the securities to the benefit of the seller of securities, of the buyers already designated by the bid, and buyers who have offered the first rejected offers.

Thus, the steps a - g above, or one of the methods according to the invention as described above, can be completed by a step performed by the calculation means and comprising h). the realization of the settlement-delivery-payment of securities by: * determining a first final price for the allocation of securities, * determining the possible defections of subscribers found at the time of the payment of securities, * redefining the names of subscribers designated as acquirers by auction and recalculating a new final allocation price.

The invention, described above for shares, also applies to the case of the negotiation of bonds whose price is fixed but whose interest rate is fixed by a similar auction process, the rate used for the titles being decreasing from one auction round to the next.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES The features and advantages of the invention will become more apparent in the light of the following description. This description relates to the exemplary embodiments, given for explanatory and nonlimiting purposes, with reference to the appended drawings, in which: FIGS. 1 and 2 show a system for implementing the invention, FIG. steps of a method according to the invention - Figure 4 shows a method implemented the bid manager of a securities seller, - Figure 5 shows an exchange of information between the server or the manager of the auction and purchasers; - FIG. 6 represents a system for auctions with the constitution of guarantees; FIG. 7 represents the steps of a method according to the invention; FIG. 8 represents a known method of managing the issue of securities, - Figure 9 shows a known auction process for the management of securities issues.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION A set of means for implementing the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

In FIG. 1, the reference 10 denotes a computer or a server or an electronic site (the server expression "will be used hereinafter, but this can also be understood as" computer "or" electronic site ") to which the different users, or bidders, or subscribers, each having a type 20 microcomputer, 22, 24, ... can connect or have access via a network 30, for example the Internet Each user accesses the network through its own connection 21, 23, 25, 27, ... and has its own address.

user devices can also be portable terminals such as mobile phones with the corresponding means of connection or communication with the server server 10 is managed for example by a bank leader file management of the securities issue considered or by a person or body mandated by it.

server stores in memorization means 12 the data relating to the auction and titles to be assigned.

the data provided by the issuer of the securities, and in particular the number of securities offered on the market, the price or the starting rate, possibly not the auction and the time increment for each, are recorded in these storage means. auction round.

The purchase data communicated by the different subscribers at each auction round is also stored, and in particular the data of the number of securities to be purchased for each buyer and the price or rate data relating to these securities. For example, a file of users or clients, establishing the link between each user or subscriber and the data that he has provided, is stored in memory means 16. FIG. 2 schematically represents, in block, the various components of the microcomputer 20. A microprocessor 40 is connected by a bus 42 to a set of RAMs 44 for storing data, and a ROM 46 in which program instructions can be stored. This system further comprises a display device 48, or screen and peripheral means 50 (keyboard) or 52 (mouse).

The reference 54 designates interface means with the network, modem type. The other devices 22, 24, ... may have the same constitution.

In general, each user device comprises means for displaying data transmitted by the computer 10 via the communication and / or transmission means 21, 25, 27, 30. It also comprises means 50 for entering auction data, such as, for example, securities quantity data at a given price or rate, these data being transmitted to the computer or to the server 10 by the communication and / or transmission means 21, 23, 25, <B> 27.30. </ B>

The server has, overall, a structure of the same type, with processor (s), data storage areas (also referred to in FIG. 1 as references 12, 14, 16) and connection to the network.

In one of the memory areas of the server are stored the data or program instructions for implementing a method according to the invention.

This data or instructions for the processing of raw or physical data can be transferred to a memory zone of the server 10 from a diskette or any other medium that can be read by a microcomputer or a computer (for example: hard disk , ROM, dynamic random access memory DRAM or any other type of RAM, compact optical disk, magnetic or optical storage element).

A transaction between the server manager, which distributes the information, and the users, can be described as follows, in connection with FIG.

Step 3-1 of departure is a current or current state of the auction, and therefore a current and current price (or rate) of the securities offered, which may be the price (or the rate) of departure fixed by the auction. issuer or the price (or rate) determined after n betting rounds.

The server 10 informs (step 3-2) the buyers of the current price (or rate) of the auction and the detailed allocation, i.e. the amount of securities obtained by each subscriber and to which price (or at what rate).

The server 10 also informs buyers of the position of their request with respect to all requests. For example, it informs the subscriber 20 of the maximum price (or minimum rate) resulting from the proposals made by all bidders, and the position of its bid in relation to all offers made by all bidders. According to one embodiment, it indicates to the subscriber the distribution of the prices (or rates) proposed in increments of 5% between the highest bid and the lowest bid and indicates in which bands the bid of potential underwriter 20 is.

This personalized information is transmitted each potential subscriber 20, 22, 24, 26, .......

Each buyer is therefore constantly informed of the relative position of his own demand curve (ie the highest values declared by this buyer in the case of purchases of securities traded on the basis of their price, or the lowest values declared by this buyer in the case of purchases of securities traded on the basis of their rates) in the set of demand curves known to all buyers (ie the highest values (respectively: lowest in the case of rates) declared by all the other buyers) - regardless of the price (or rate) of the first rejected offer: it thus knows to what rank is the, or the, maximum prices (or minimum rates) that he has proposed to acquire a defined number of securities. He therefore knows if his or her offers are in the 10% of best offers, although it is in the range of 10 to 20% of the best offers, or if it is in the range of 20 to 30% better deals, etc. This element of the securities issue management system according to the invention is intended to allow buyers to follow - if they wish - the evolution of their relative position during the auction, and to anticipate the decisions. that they will have to take if other bidders upward their demand curves. Buyers thus follow the actual allocations at each round of the auction, along with their future position if certain potential buyers who, excluded from the previous round bid for not having proposed a sufficient price (or a rate insuffusant) , revise their offers upward (respectively downward for rates).

This aspect of the invention is important for an auction of equity securities. Stocks and bonds are a special asset in the sense that each buyer of these assets (each subscribing investor) is very sensitive to the estimates that their counterparts and competitors (the other subscribing investors) make for the same securities. Inform bidders of their relative position in all offers made by investors (without revealing the highest prices or the lowest rates offered by each investor subscriber which would make the auction uncomfortable and ineffective, since no one wishes revealing the highest price (or the lowest rate) that it is willing to offer to its competitors) thus favors the discovery by each of the value that the securities have for sale, in a context of real comparison offers from each other. In other words, this allows bidders to gradually build up during the auction their knowledge of the real value of goods sold for themselves, in a real context of competition that puts them in a situation of effective choice in the face of other potential buyers of the same goods.

The aspect of the system and method according to the invention thus differs from the systems and processes proposed by Ausubel in US-6021398, 6026383 and 5905975 for sets of multiple properties: taking into account the peculiarities of purchasers of equity securities, it is is, according to the invention, disclosed to no buyer the highest prices (or lowest rates) offered by other buyers, although each buyer is told the relative position of the price (or rate) he offers compared to the higher prices (or lower rates) offered by other buyers.

Based on this information, one or more of these subscribers may decide to modify the requests they have made by proposing a new price or rate and a new quantity of securities to be purchased (step 3-3). To this end, they are first asked whether or not they wish to modify this data. If less than one of the potential buyers proposes to modify their proposal, the acceptability of the new offers is verified (step 3-4).

The first step is to check whether each of the new offers is in the auction. If, for example, one of the bids is below (respectively above in the case of rates) of the lowest bid (respectively the highest bid) proposed in the previous round, it can not be taken into account and it is eliminated. A warning message may be sent to the bidder thus eliminated.

In another aspect, this verification may also include a verification of the condition of deposit of security or surety in the event that such a guarantee or surety is required to be able to participate in the auction, as explained below. If it is required a security equal to a percentage p% of the total price proposed by each buyer (unit price it proposes multiplied by the number of titles' it proposes to buy), for example between 10% and 17% or between 12 and 15% of the total price, and if p% of the new total price proposed by a buyer is greater than the amount of money guaranteed or put in guarantee, the buyer is eliminated from the betting round. The latter may also increase the amount of the deposit or guarantee for subsequent betting rounds.

The server 10 then calculates a new allocation and a new allocation price (or rate) for all the buyers who propose a modification of their offer (step 3-5). Practically, it will for example calculate what it is necessary to bid (or how to reduce the rate) so that buyers who modify their offer have the amount of securities they want. The server 10 can therefore act each turn on behalf of the buyers if they wish, to formulate their offers based on the requests that buyers have made, and in their best interests, that is to say in bidding each round only to the amount of what is needed to bid so that buyers have the amount of securities they want.

The system and method according to the invention are distinguished from the current systems of the US and French Treasury, for the obvious reason that they do not offer buyers to revise their offers based on the amount of securities obtained in the first round of the year. this being the first and last round of a single-round auction. A new state of the auction (step 3-6) is determined based on the new bid data made by the buyers. This new state then replaces the current initial state 3-1.

In the case where no buyer wishes to modify his offer, the new state of the auction remains identical to the initial state. The program then closes on step 3-1, until one of the potential buyers decides to modify its offer, or until the auction closes. This occurs for example at a pre-determined time (for example closing time of the stock market on which the securities offered are traded) or after a predetermined number of change requests have been reached without any Subscribers do not modify their request.

FIG. 4 represents the steps implemented by the server 10, or buyer bid manager, in the case of a variant of the method explained above.

According to this variant, one or more buyers A1, ... An have previously asked the server 10, and therefore its manager, to calculate each turn, or even up to a certain maximum unit price (or minimum unit rate) predetermined, or from a predetermined minimum unit price (or unit maximum rate), the minimum bid price increases (or maximum rate decreases) to be able to remain in the auction.

Under these conditions, the server calculates these price increases or rate cuts (step 4-3) and then establishes a new offer (step 4 4) from these price increases or calculated rate decreases of the orders received by the buyers. (step 4 - 2).

new prices or bid rates are the new state of the auction.

According to this variant, each buyer therefore has the possibility at all times to delegate to the bidder (the machine that manages the auction) the task of responding to the allocations and successive awards or allocation rates, or to driving his own own auction. Bearing in mind both the need to give buyers the opportunity not to reveal to the manager the true value of the goods they wish to buy if they do not wish to disclose it, and the need to offer them a device that saves them money. resources (by exempting them from following the results of the round-by-turn auction, and modifying accordingly their requests for securities and the price or the rate of these requests), this device allows the buyers of securities to respond to the evolution of the price or the allocation rates of the securities without being permanently connected to site 0, and thus to be permanently satisfied with the demands they have formulated and for which they have given a mandate to act - in at the same time as taking over the conduct of their auction as soon as they wish.

In the case of bonds whose price to be paid by the purchasers is fixed, but the variable is the rate, which moves downward from one turn to another of the auction, it is the accepted rate cuts. by the buyer which are calculated by the computer 10 so that this buyer can remain in the auction. The new state of the auction, at the end of a round of bidding, consists of an allocation and a rate paid to each lessee.

This structuring distinguishes the auction system according to the invention from that proposed by Ausubel in the US patents already cited. On the one hand, the manager acts on behalf of the seller and automatically manages the auction according to the rules detailed above. On the other hand, the manager may at any time act also on behalf of the buyers if they wish, to formulate their offers according to the requests that the buyers have made, and in their best interests, it is ie by bidding on each round only the height (or reducing the rate) of what it is necessary for buyers to have the amount of securities they want.

This structure also distinguishes the system according to the invention from the current US and French Treasury systems, for the reason that they do not propose to the buyers to revise their offers according to the quantity of securities obtained in the first round of the auction. - this being the first and last round of a single-round auction.

Figure 5 shows schematically, both the structure of the server system managing bids and buyers A1, A2, ....

The server (its calculation means or its processor) calculates, on the basis of the calculation program whose instructions are stored in memory 14, for example in ROM memory, the price (or rate) and allocation data based on initial (or rate) price or rate data and number of available securities (data that are set by the issuer and stored in memory 12), as well as tender offer data (price or rates, quantities for each purchaser) provided by the buyers and which are also stored.

The current price (or rate) results from these calculation operations, and the program also derives and stores the resulting auction allocation (how many titles are awarded to each buyer and for what price or at what rate) . This allocation may be stored next to the previous allocations in a zone 16 of the storage means.

The price or current rate and allocation information is transmitted to the different buyers by the communication and transmission means already described above.

An auctioneer's participation in the acquisition of securities may be subject to the condition that he has previously secured a sufficient amount of collateral, for example from a financial institution.

This is illustrated in FIG. 6, where reference numeral 60 denotes a banking organization or any authorized person from whom the amounts 64-1, 64-2, .... 64-n, of guarantee are deposited by each of the bidders A,. .., An.

The data on the amount of guarantee constituted by each buyer is transmitted from the banking organization 60 to the server 10, for example by a communications network 62 such as the Internet, and preferably in a secure manner.

The server 10 can then implement step 3-4 already described above before calculating any new allocation of securities.

These sums pledged as collateral enable the issuer of the securities to secure themselves against any defection by any of the purchasers or purchasers of the securities at the time of the allocation of the securities.

Indeed, in a traditional auction system, the seller benefits from the implicit guarantee that constitutes the physical presence, on the very places where the auction takes place, of potential buyers. In the case of electronic auctions, no movement of buyers is required, and these can simply decide, at any time, to abandon any participation in the auction, for example by disconnecting the terminal from which they have operated previously. If this occurs at the final time, ie just before the delivery of the securities, the person who has offered the securities to the market is obliged to abandon the assignment at the final price determined at the time of delivery. result of successive rounds of auctions. This can result in a considerable loss, both for the marketer and also for the server manager 10.

In order to avoid these inconveniences, each person wishing to participate in the auction may be invited beforehand to provide a sufficient amount of collateral with a bank or any other person entitled to receive such collateral.

This guarantee amount, for each buyer, for example equal to a percentage of the amount that the buyer in question is willing to pay for the securities for which he participates in the auction. If, for example, a buyer is willing to buy for $ 100 of the securities offered, he will be asked to pre-guarantee, for example, 12% x $ 100,000 = $ 12,000. He will be able to bid up to $ 10 per security for 10,000 titles or up to 100 per security for 1,000 titles. Beyond, for example to be able to offer $ 120 per title for 1,000 titles, it will increase its security deposit up to 12 x 120 000 = $ 14 400.

Potential buyers who have not offered a fairly high price during the auction to obtain any security can be reimbursed their security deposit at the close of the auction.

If one or more buyers nominated by the auction fail at the time of the payment of the securities, the manager recalculates the allocation (quantity of securities allocated to each buyer) and a new first offer price rejected (necessarily lower than the price, previous, of the first rejected offer defined at the end of the auction), and imposes this new price of the first rejected bid as the reference price of the auction - the seller appropriating the buyers' guarantee deposits which have been proved defective, This rule is thus advantageous for all end buyers who have not defaulted, since either (for buyers definitively designated as buyers at the end of the auction) they pay less for the securities acquired (or they are weaned a higher rate) or (for potential buyers having formulated the first, second, third, etc. rejected offers) they get titles that they would not have been obtained if certain buyers nominated by the auction had not defaulted.

This rule is also advantageous for the seller V of securities whose gain from the appropriation of security deposits offsets the decline in the final selling price (or the rate hike) of the securities, which price was revised to the downward (or upward) as a result of the defection of some buyers. For this purpose, the fixed percentage of security deposit requested by the seller must be sufficiently high, that is to say close to 15% (which can therefore be included, for example, between <B> 11% </ B> and 20% or between 12% and 17%) of the plaintiffs' investments under the currently known conditions of elasticity of aggregate demand for equity securities.

Taking into account the complete modification of the economy of an auction process induced by its implementation in an automatic electronic processing system, this rule warns the seller and all the buyers against a failure of one of the bidders at the time of payment - and, in the event of default by one of the buyers nominated by the auction, rectifies the allocation and the price or the rate of allocation of the securities to the benefit of the seller of securities, of the buyers already designated by the auction, and buyers who have offered the first rejected offers.

In the case of bonds whose price to be paid by the purchasers is fixed but whose variable is the rate, which moves downwards from one turn to another of the auction, the deposit may be equal to a percentage of the total amount that the buyer will actually pay if he buys the securities (equal to the number of securities he proposes to buy multiplied by the price to be paid for each security). The security deposit of a buyer may be increased if the buyer decides during the auction to increase the number of securities he proposes to buy. But, otherwise, this deposit will remain constant, and will serve to cover the seller, in the same way as already explained above, the final rate being corrected upward following the defection of one of the takers. The calculation, at each auction round, of a new price or of the new rate and the new auction allocation can be made on the basis of the following formalism.

Formalism corresponds to the following mechanism: at each turn the server calculation means compare (and are scheduled to compare) all possible combinations of elementary demands (a basic demand being defined by a couple (quantity of securities purchase price proposed or rate proposed remuneration), the same buyer can express several basic requests for different prices or rates), and look for the best price or the best rate for the issuer.

Cette inégalité traduit le fait que le prix globalement payé par l'ensemble des acheteurs est supérieur au prix obtenu en effectuant toutes les combinaisons possibles d'allocations parmi tous les enchérisseurs et avec les qu'ils ont proposés. Ceci signifie entre autres que, à chaque tour d'enchères, le serveur 10 effectue toutes les comparaisons de toutes les allocations possibles, et est donc programme à cet effet. A volume of capital L that a transmitter V wishes to obtain through the issue of a quantity Q of shares; are bidders Ai (i = 1, ..., n), each bidder Ai being defined by a demand function D; : q; (pl), q; (p2), <I> ..., </ I>q; (p, m), the bidder Ai taking the quantity q; (pl) of securities for the price <B> pi, </ b> the quantity q; (p2) of securities for the price p2, ... and the quantity q; (p, n) of securities for the price pm. We note <I> k Pi </ I> the price offered by the bidder Ai for the quantity of titles k, Q as deduced from the demand function D; : Any price offered by an Ai bidder for a quantity of titles k, Q is a firm proposition, which can only be revised upward during the auction; or finally a no auction z, which requires any bidder to outbid at least z on the price offered by another bidder; or finally an auction organized in successive rounds between which the bidders are aware of the results of the previous round and the information given to them by the auction manager and, where appropriate, modify their demand functions - the auction being declared closed either at the end of a defined period of time or after n turns of unchanged results. the result each round, the quantities, k, Q, k: Q ..., k, Q of titles are allocated to the bidders b, k, b, kj <I> ... </ I> b, kl retained in all A; = 1, ..., n) for a series of prices, k <I> p, </ I>, k <I> p </ I> ... .kp define the relation,

This inequality reflects the fact that the overall price paid by all buyers is higher than the price obtained by making all possible combinations of allowances among all the bidders and with the ones they have proposed. This means among other things that, at each betting round, the server 10 performs all the comparisons of all possible allocations, and is therefore program for this purpose.

<I>(2)</I> b' ki, kiQ E N, (N étant l'ensemble des entiers naturels)

The following six conditions are additionally imposed:

<I> (2) </ I> b 'ki, kiQ EN, (N being the set of natural numbers)

le preneur b_kf de la quantité de titres .k@Q étant alors choisi aléatoirement - et définitivement aussi longtemps que les fonctions de demande des enchérisseurs ne changent pas - parmi l'ensemble des enchérisseurs qui ont proposé un prix d'émission

conditions (1) et (2) signifient respectivement que la quantité titres allouée est égale à Q, et que chaque enchère de chaque acheteur doit au moins enchérir pour une quantité égale à un titre.

the taker b_kf of the quantity of titles .k @ Q then being chosen randomly - and permanently as long as the demand functions of the bidders do not change - among all the bidders who have proposed an issue price

Conditions (1) and (2) mean respectively that the amount of securities allocated is equal to Q, and that each bid of each buyer must at least bid for a quantity equal to one security.

condition (3) means that the lessee of a fraction of the securities the one who proposed the highest price for that fraction of the securities. Condition (4) means that the price paid to the lessee of a fraction of securities is equal to the price offered by the bidder who proposed the second highest price for that fraction of securities increased by the bid increment.

conditions (5) and (6) define the price paid by the lessee in the event that the difference between the price proposed by the lessee and the second best price is lower than the bid price: this price is then equal to the price proposed by the the taker.

 Written for a share issue where the variable is the price paid by each subscriber for each share it subscribes, this formalization applies to all other financial securities, bonds, bonds convertible into shares, options, warrants. Instead of being the selling price of the security, the variable can be the interest rate for bonds and convertible bonds. And the formalization becomes, by replacing the price p by the interest rate r served on the securities, and making the necessary adaptations: at the end of each round, the quantities, k, Q,, kzQ ..., k, Q of titles are awarded to the bidders <I> ... </ I>

suivantes

bk, b ... bk for a series of interest rates <I> k, r, </ I> k, '. defined relation

following

preneur b.,# de la quantité de titres .k,Q étant alors choisi aléatoirement -et définitivement aussi longtemps que les fonctions de demande des enchérisseurs ne changent pas - parmi l'ensemble des encherisseurs qui ont proposé un taux d'intérêt k w r égal à inf( Y,) . ; Les équations ont alors une signification équivalente à celle déjà indiquées ci-dessus pour les actions: Les conditions (1') et (2') signifient respectivement que quantité titres allouée est égale à Q, et que chaque enchère de chaque acheteur doit au moins enchérir pour une quantité égale à un titre.

taker b., # of the quantity of titles .k, Q being then randomly chosen - and definitely as long as the bidders' request functions do not change - among all the bidders who proposed an interest rate kwr equal at inf (Y,). ; The equations then have a meaning equivalent to that already given above for the actions: The conditions (1 ') and (2') respectively mean that the amount of securities allocated is equal to Q, and that each bid of each buyer must at least bid for a quantity equal to one title.

condition (3 ') means that the lessee of a securities fraction is the one proposed the lowest rate for this fraction securities.

Condition (4 ') means that the rate at which the holder of a fraction of the securities is remunerated is equal to the rate proposed by the party proposing the second lowest rate for that fraction of securities, minus the amount of the auction.

The conditions (5 ') and (6') define the rate paid to the lessee in case the difference between the rate offered by the lessee and the second best rate would be lower than the bid: this rate is then equal to the proposed rate by the lessee.

Similarly, in the case of an issue of convertible bonds or an option issue, set the issue price of the security, the interest rate payable, and the details of all other repayment terms - to force the underwriters to outbid the number of n shares they accept at a given time as repayment of the securities (bonds) originally issued. And again, the selection of the takers, the quantities of securities taken and the number of shares admitted in repayment is then organized by the following relations (11 ") - (6"), directly deduced from the relations (1), (2 ), (3), (4), (5), (6) and (7) previously defined

le preneur b.k` de la quantité de titres .k@Q étant alors choisi aléatoirement - et définitivement aussi longtemps que fonctions de demande des enchérisseurs ne changent pas - parmi l'ensemble des enchérisseurs qui ont proposé un nombre d'actions admis en remboursement du titre initial n.k, égal à inf(.k@ n;) .

the taker bk` of the quantity of titles .k @ Q then being chosen randomly - and permanently as long as the bidders' request functions do not change - among all the bidders who have proposed a number of shares admitted in reimbursement of the initial title nk, equal to inf (.k @ n;).

Here again, the equations have a meaning equivalent to that already given above for actions.

Two examples will now be given, describing embodiments of auctions according to the invention. The first example relates to a bid on the issue price of the securities.

Since the bid functions of the bidders Ai are given, the relationships explained above organize the instantaneous discovery of the takers b, b, kl, bk of the quantities k, Q, k2Q, .k, Q titles at pk <I>, </ I> p ... pk prices at each round of the auction. However, the logic of this selection of prices and takers can be described by breaking down the selection, for each round of auction, into several phases.

First phase: a second best price auction (epsilon) on all 500 titles; we thus obtain a price, for example 100; Second phase of the auction, itself broken down into two stages - first, a sequential bid at the second price plus a fraction of the 500 titles, initiated from this question: "does anyone take (by example) 50 titles over $ 100? "and resulting in a price of (for example) US $ 109 out of 50 titles; - then a sequential bid at the second price plus s on the remaining 450 titles, initiated from this question "is anyone ready to take the 450 titles to more than US $ 99?" (since 450 x 99 + 50 x 109 = 500 x 100); two things one then: either someone takes over 450 US $ 450 titles, and the auction to 109 US $ on the 50 titles is valid, and the auction continues; no one takes, and the auction is closed.

Third, fourth ... and last phases of the auction: repetition of the second phase on all the fractions of the 500 titles for which there are purchasers of a new fraction of the whole at a more advantageous price for the seller.

Since bidders are free to modify their application functions to the issuer's advantage between each auction round, each new auction round reiterates all of these phases by incorporating the changes that bidders made to their requisition functions between two towers.

It is therefore carried out (with the aid of the calculation means or the server processor 10), according to an example embodiment of the invention, at each auction round, at the following stages (the set of titles being in number equal to N): a) aggregation of all the offers selected in the previous round and new offers made for this round; b) the search for the new price of the first rejected offer - starting from the last accepted offer of the previous round, - subtracting the last accepted offer, - asking whether the new set of offers thus defined relates to N titles; - defining the new rejected first offer price as the price of the last accepted offer of the previous round, if the number of offers of the new set of offers thus defined is equal to N; (c) reiterating step (b) if the number of offers in the new set of offers so defined is not equal to N, until the new set of offers equals N.

The second example is an interest rate auction on securities.

Since the bid functions of the bidders Ai are given, the relationships (1) to (7) explained above organize the instantaneous discovery of the takers b, k, bk,... B,, quantities, k, Q,, kzQ ... .k, Q of securities at interest rates r, k, r, k, ... r, k at each round of the auction. However, the logic of this selection of prices and takers can be described by artificially decomposing the selection into several phases, and this for each round of auction.

First phase: an auction at the second best price less (epsilon) on all 500 titles; we get a price, for example 3,79; Second phase of the auction, itself broken down into two stages - first, a sequential bid at the second price plus a fraction of the 500 titles, initiated from this question: "does anyone take (by example) 50 titles at less than 3.79%? "and resulting in a price of (for example) 3.52% of the 50 titles; - then a sequential bid at the second lowest price e on the remaining 450 titles, initiated from this question "someone is it ready to take the 450 titles to less than 3.82%?" (since 450 x 3, 82 + 50 x 3.52 = 500 x 3.79); two things one then: either someone takes less than 3.82 450 titles, and the auction to 3.52% of the 50 titles valid, and the auction continues; no one takes, and the auction is closed.

Third, fourth ... and last phases of the auction: repetition of the second phase on all the fractions of the 500 titles for which there are purchasers of a new fraction of the whole at a more advantageous price for the seller .

In addition, since bidders are free to modify their application functions to the advantage of the issuer between each auction round, each new auction round reiterates all these phases by incorporating the modifications that the bidders have made to their functions. request between two rounds.

It is therefore carried out (with the aid of the calculation means or the server processor 10), according to an example embodiment of the invention, at each auction round, at the following stages (the set of titles being in number equal to N): a) aggregation of all the offers selected in the previous round and new offers made for this round; b) the search for the new rate of the first rejected offer - starting from the last accepted offer of the previous round, - subtracting the last accepted offer, - asking whether the new set of offers thus defined relates to N titles; - by setting the new rejected first offer rate as the rate of the last accepted offer of the previous round, if the number of offers of the new set of offers thus defined is equal to N; (c) reiterating step (b) if the number of offers in the new set of offers so defined is not equal to N, until the new set of offers equals N.

FIG. 7 represents steps of a method according to the invention for the IPO of a security. In a first step (7-1), under the aegis of a leading securities management bank considered, an electronic site registers the requests for title of the applicant subscribers the purchase of all or part of these titles.

Then (step 7-2), on the basis of the information that these first requests formulated by the subscribers and communicated to it by the site, the lead bank builds an order book (database stored in the server or the server). computer 10 and which contains the names of the subscribers and the quantity subscribed for a given price or rate) defines a first offer price.

The lead bank then makes these results known to the various subscribers, indicating to them on the site the quantity of securities that has been allocated to each and the price at which these securities were allocated (step 7-3).

Based on the results of the previous step, which is the starting point of the auction, the site then organizes an auction, in the manner already described above, between all subscribers who have made the request on the site (step 7-4). Subscribers are allowed to revise their claims upward if they are not satisfied with the amount of securities they obtained in Step 7-2 and were given them in Step 7-3.

At the end of this auction which takes place for example several hours spread over one or two days, the site communicates to the lead bank the names of subscribers designated as buyers by the auction, the lead bank then ensures the settlement-delivery-payment of the securities (step 7-5) by possibly correcting the final price of the allocation of the securities according to any defections of subscribers found at the time of the payment of the securities.

The title is finally introduced on the market (step 7-6).

The invention is particularly applicable to the case of stocks of high growth companies, such as currently telecommunications companies or information technology (networks or Internet). These companies have an activity whose growth rate is much higher than the general rate of the economy; this growth rate may be greater than 30%, it is for example of the order of 40% or 50 or more over a period of about a year or a few months. In other economic conditions companies from other sectors of the economy can meet this definition, such as real estate companies. The invention is therefore limited to securities of telecommunications or information technology companies.

The invention also applies to companies of traditional sectors and / or of lower growth.

Claims (3)

<U> CLAIMS </ U> 1. Computerized device for implementing an auction of a set of identical goods for the transfer of these goods to a plurality of buyers, each buyer operating through an access terminal, this computerized device comprising: - first means to receive bid information provided by the buyers, - second bid processing means proposed by the buyers, for determining, from auction information received from the different access terminals, each auction round, quantities of goods allocated to each purchaser; - third means for sending to each buyer's access terminal, at each round of the auction, information on the quantities of goods obtained by each of the purchasers in the preceding round, but not the higher prices or lower rates possibly offered by each of the bidders on the previous round. 2. Device according to claim 1, comprising storage means, for storing, for each buyer, the quantity of desired goods at each auction round, the first means being programmed to calculate, at each auction round, the minimum bid, or minimum discount, so that each buyer can have quantity of desired goods. 3. Device according to one of claims 1 or 2, further comprising means of communication with computer means of a banking organization. Device according to claim 3, the computer means of said banking institution transmitting, or being programmed to transmit, to the first processing means information constituting guarantees. 5. Device according to one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising means for storing data comprising the number of identical goods to be assigned and a starting price of these goods or departure rate associated with these goods. 6. Device according to claim 5, the means for storing data further memorizing a step of the auction. 7. Device according to claim 5 or 6, the means for storing data also memorizing a maximum duration of one round of auction. 8. Device according to one of claims 7, further comprising storage means for storing, at each auction round, the allocation resulting from this round. 9. Device according to one of claims 8, further comprising means for storing, at each auction round, the allocations resulting from previous rounds. 10. Device according to one of claims to 9, the auction processing means carrying out, at each auction round: a) aggregation of all the offers selected in the previous round and new offers made for this round ; b) the search for the new price of the first rejected offer - starting from the last offer accepted previous round, - subtracting the last accepted offer, - asking if the new set of offers thus defined relates to N titles; - defining the new rejected first offer price as the price of the last accepted offer of the previous round, if the number of offers of the new set of offers thus defined is equal to N; (c) repeating step (b) if the number of offers in the new set of offers thus defined is not equal to N, until the new set of tenders equals N. 11. one of claims 1 to 9, the auction processing means performing, at each auction round: a) aggregation of all the offers selected in the previous round and new offers made for this round; b) the search for the new rate of the first rejected offer - starting from the last accepted offer of the previous round, - subtracting the last accepted offer, - asking whether the new set of offers thus defined relates to N titles; - by setting the new rejected first offer rate as the rate of the last accepted offer of the previous round, if the number of offers of the new set of offers thus defined is equal to N; (c) repeating step (b) if the number of offers in the new set of offers so defined is not equal to N, until the new set of offers equals N. 12. System automatic for implementing an auction of a set of identical goods, for the transfer of goods to a plurality of buyers each of whom has an access terminal, comprising a computer or a computer server and: means of communication between the access terminals of the buyers and the computer or the computer server, said computer or server being programmed to perform the following operations, at each round of the auction: receive, via the first means of communication, the offers made by each buyer, check the acceptability of these offers, * calculate a new price or a new rate and new allocation of goods to the different buyers, send to the buyers said new price or said new rate and a new allocation, said calculating computer or server, at each round of the auction, the minimum bid for each buyer to have the quantity of desired goods, according to said new price or said new rate and said new allocation. 13. System according to claim 12, further comprising means of communication with computer means of a banking organization. 14. The system of claim 13, the computer means of said banking organization transmitting, or being programmed to transmit, to the computer server warranty formation information.