Copenhagen: Nasdaq Inc has agreed to buy the main stock exchange in Oslo in a deal that completes its dominance in the Nordic region and pushes aside a competing offer from Euronext.
Nasdaq AB has offered to buy all shares in Oslo Bors VPS Holding ASA for 152 kroner a share, valuing the exchange at 6.54 billion kroner ($770 million). The Oslo Bors’s board of directors and executive management team “have unanimously decided to recommend” the offer to shareholders, according to a statement on Wednesday.
The agreement means that a competing offer from Euronext now appears to be dead. For Nasdaq, it brings Norway into the group of OMX exchanges that already includes Denmark, Sweden and Finland.
Nasdaq said it has received irrevocable pre-acceptances from investors representing 35.11 per cent of the total shares in Oslo Bors, including DNB and KLP, the two largest shareholders.
DNB said it agrees with the Oslo Bors board’s assessment that the Nasdaq bid is “the best solution” for the exchange.
“We believe that Nasdaq will offer the strategically best solution for the Norwegian capital market and for the Norwegian Central Securities Depository,” DNB, which is Norway’s biggest bank, said in a separate statement.
