NYSE Euronext (NYX), meeting with investors for the first time after regulators rejected its takeover by Deutsche Boerse AG, reduced its 2012 cost forecast, pledged $250 million in annual savings by the end of 2014 and said a stock buyback will be completed this year.

The exchange (NYX) said 2012 costs will be $1.627 billion to $1.652 billion, compared with a prior forecast of less than $1.666 million, according to a presentation today. The company also said “Project 14,” a program aimed at generating more savings, will generate about $90 million from technology and “organizational efficiency.” The New York-based firm is buying back $550 million in shares.

NYSE Euronext, operator of the New York Stock Exchange, bourses in Paris, Lisbon, Brussels and Amsterdam, and London- based Liffe, Europe’s second-largest derivatives market, is discussing its standalone strategy with shareholders after a year’s work on a merger with Deutsche Boerse.

Last week, NYSE said it plans to spend $85 million moving clearing for London derivatives trades to its own clearinghouse, while retaining the services of LCH.Clearnet Group Ltd. for cash equities transactions.

NYSE Liffe Clearing, a central counterparty to all trades on the London-based Liffe futures market, will be operational by the summer of 2013. It will shift clearing for derivatives traded in Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon and Paris to the U.K. capital in the first quarter of 2014. The company previously said it would build two clearinghouses: one in London and one in Paris.

NYSE Euronext said today that 2012 capital expenditures will increase to about $200 million from $170 million in 2011.

To contact the reporters on this story: Nandini Sukumar in London at nsukumar@bloomberg.net; Nina Mehta in New York at nmehta24@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Baker at nbaker7@bloomberg.net; Andrew Rummer at arummer@bloomberg.net