Nasdaq to Take Over Nordic Stock Market Owner OMX for $3.7 Bil.

By Kyodo News International, Tokyo

May 25–NEW YORK — Nasdaq Stock Market Inc., the New York-based operator of the tech-heavy Nasdaq market, said Friday it has agreed to buy OMX AB, the operator of several Nordic stock markets for $3.7 billion.

With the takeover, the resultant Nasdaq-OMX combination will overtake the Tokyo Stock Exchange in terms of total market capitalization of companies traded. The figure will stand at $5.5 trillion, or 660 trillion yen, against the TSE’s 560 trillion yen.

“The combination will create the largest global network of exchanges and exchange customers linked by technology,” said the New York bourse and OMX in a joint statement. The merged exchanges will be called the Nasdaq OMX Group.

The merger will be carried out through a cash and stock tender offer by Nasdaq for all outstanding shares in OMX. The terms of the offer would provide for a trade equivalent to 0.502 new Nasdaq share plus 94.3 Swedish kronor in cash for each OMX share. Based on Nasdaq’s closing price on Wednesday, the offer values OMX at 208.1 kronor per share, equivalent to $3.7 billion, the two exchanges said.

The new alliance follows the formation of NYSE Euronext, which was created via March’s amalgamation of the New York Stock Exchange and the Paris-based Euronext.

OMX, based in Stockholm, runs stock bourses in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and the Baltic states with some 800 companies’ shares traded.

Nasdaq, whose hostile approach for the London Stock Exchange Plc in 2006 was scuttled by investors, has been seeking to obtain a foothold in Europe.

Speculation is rife that the Nasdaq-OMX alliance will renew attempts to take over the LSE.

OMX itself has also tried in vain to acquire the LSE in the past.

Nasdaq has provided the venue where such high-tech titans as Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. have procured funds. It lists some 1,200 companies’ shares.

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