DIFX names two new directors after OMX deal

Dubai: The Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX) on Saturday said it has appointed two new board members following the $4.9-billion OMX deal involving Borse Dubai and Nasdaq Stock Market.

The transaction resulted in the Nasdaq OMX Group acquiring a 33.3 per cent stake in the DIFX, a Borse Dubai company.

The two new DIFX board members are Robert Greifeld, chief executive officer of Nasdaq OMX Group, and Adena Friedman, executive vice-president of corporate strategy of Nasdaq OMX Group.

Greifeld will serve as vice-chairman of the DIFX and as a member of the DIFX's Nomination and Remuneration Committee. Friedman will serve as a member of the DIFX's Market Oversight Committee.

The rest of the DIFX board membership remains unchanged. It comprises chairman Soud Ba'alawy, chief executive officer Per Larsson, and Maha Al Ghunaim, Bisher Barazi, Mohammad Bin Braik, Eisa Kazim, Gerald Lawless, George Möller and Shadi Sanbar. Ba'alawy and Kazim will also serve on the newly formed Nasdaq OMX Group board.

Borse Dubai, the holding company for Dubai's stock exchange interests, last week sold 97.2 per cent of its shares in Nordic and Baltic stock market operator OMX to Nasdaq as part of a previously agreed deal.

In return, it received 42.9 million newly issued shares in Nasdaq and about $1.9 billion in cash.