UPDATE 2-NYSE details Treasury futures; sees new partners

* Eurodollar; 2-, 5-, 10- and 30-year US Treasury futures

* NYSE Liffe U.S. venue to launch Treasury futures in Q3

* Exchange CEO says expects to add more stakeholders soon (Recasts first paragraph with partners detail; adds CEO comments, background on CME and ELX, byline)

By Jonathan Spicer

NEW YORK, April 6 (Reuters) - Exchange operator NYSE Euronext (NYX.N) detailed the Treasury futures it will offer on its NYSE Liffe U.S. venue, and said it expected to add more "triple-A" partners before it takes on CME Group Inc (CME.O) in the third quarter.

The company said on Tuesday it will start with 2-year, 5-year, 10-year and 30-year U.S. Treasury futures, as well as Eurodollar futures.

It aims to launch the products in tandem with a joint venture with clearinghouse DTCC, and said it expects to offer options on these futures in the fourth quarter.

In joining the market, the New York Stock Exchange parent would take on CME Group, the giant derivatives exchange operator that has a near-monopoly in U.S. Treasury futures. Privately-owned ELX Futures LP, another challenger, launched its futures exchange in July and has so far had limited success.

The Chicago Board of Trade, now owned by Chicago-based CME Group, has swatted back a handful of Treasuries market challengers in the last decade including Eurex U.S. in 2004 and BrokerTec Futures Exchange between 2001 and 2003.

"Start up exchanges in the U.S. have a 100 percent failure rate to date, and we're very interested in not being the next victim in that losing streak," Thomas Callahan, the chief executive of NYSE Liffe U.S., said in an interview.

Six outside partners -- including Morgan Stanley (MS.N), Citadel Securities, and big proprietary trading firm Getco -- have equity-sharing stakes in NYSE Liffe U.S.

Callahan told Reuters he expects additional partners to join before the Treasuries are launched in the third quarter. "Having a few more triple-A names couldn't hurt, and we're in advanced discussions with a number of those," he said.

NYSE Liffe U.S. now trades some metals futures. The trans-Atlantic parent company is aggressively diversifying its business model from the traditional base in cash equities, and striking partnerships to do so.

One of its new ventures is NYPC, a joint venture with Depository Trust Clearing Corp (DTCC) that will clear Treasury futures in an arrangement meant to cut margins for customers that also trade the underlying securities. [ID:nN29105235]

While come customers would get little benefit from NYPC, some could see more than 50 percent in capital relief due to the cross margining across futures and cash equities, Callahan said. He added it ultimately targets a 30 percent reduction.

NYSE Liffe U.S. -- currently a money-losing venture for the parent company, but seen as a potentially big driver of revenue -- expects to launch additional products before the end of the year, perhaps beyond the Treasuries realm, Callahan said.

NYSE Euronext said the six previously announced partners in NYSE Liffe U.S. -- who also include Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), UBS AG (UBSN.VX), and a unit of DRW Trading Group -- "now own a significant minority stake" in the venture. (Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by John Wallace and Tim Dobbyn)