Borse Dubai sweetens bid for OMX

Dubai: Borse Dubai is close to acquiring a majority stake in OMX AB as it raised the offer price by 35 crowns to 265 crowns per share, valuing the Nordic exchanges operator at $4.9 billion.

Together with the earlier acquisitions of Borse Dubai in OMX, it now controls 57.4 million OMX shares, representing 47.6 per cent of the votes.

Borse Dubai and Nasdaq entered into an agreement on September 20 under which the Dubai firm would eventually sell all OMX shares it acquired in return for a 19.99 per cent stake in the merged entity between Nasdaq and OMX and a cash component of $1.7 billion.

Though Borse Dubai has increased the offer by 35 crowns per OMX share, out of this, 25 crowns (totalling $464 million), will be paid by Borse Dubai and 10 crowns by Nasdaq.

This would mean that the cash component which Nasdaq will pay Borse Dubai as part of the deal will increase to approximately $1.93 billion.

As part of the revised offer, Borse Dubai has also revised the acceptance level condition under its offer from more than 90 per cent to more than 50 per cent.

Borse Dubai and Nasdaq yesterday secured irrevocable undertakings from Investor AB, Nordea Bank AB, Olof Stenhammar, Didner & Gerge Fonder AB, Nykredit Realkredit and Magnus Böcker, who together hold approximately 18.5 per cent of the votes and shares in OMX.

Analysts said yesterday that despite a higher offer by Borse Dubai, a competing bid by Qatar can't be ruled out.

"They acquired close to a 10 per cent stake at 260 crowns per share. It is too early to say that they will back out as the price difference is not significant," said a Dubai-based investment banker.