The German stock exchange may forge an alliance with markets in Milan and Madrid, and the tech-heavy US Nasdaq exchange to bid for the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the German Weekly Focus said in a report to appear on Monday.
An unnamed US financial source told Focus that the operation would be "as friendly as possible and as hostile as necessary."
The report said that Deutsche Boerse head Werner Seifert had spoken with his Nasdaq counterpart Frank Zarb in order to hammer out an accord including the four markets.
They would seek to counter a hostile takover bid for the LSE by the Swedish OM Group, which scuttled a proposed merger between the London and Frankfurt exchanges to have been known as iX international exchanges.
But iX, announced last spring, was already facing stiff internal resistance, particularly in London, which had forced the postponement of a shareholder's vote scheduled for September 14.
The LSE finally abandoned the merger plans on Tuesday and is now fending off the humbling 820 million pound (1.3 billion euro, $1.2 billion) bid from OM Group, a small Swedish technology group which runs the Stockholm exchange.
The LSE, Europe's largest stock exchange, was demutualized in March, leaving it open to takeover attempts.— (AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
