Borse Dubai may sell stake in LSE

Borse Dubai may consider selling a part of its 20-per cent stake in the London Stock Exchange to facilitate a merger between the LSE and the Toronto exchange operator TMX, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

A senior Borse Dubai official told The National that the company would consider selling its stake in order to reduce its ownership in the joint exchange to less than 10 per cent.

Under its current structure, Dubai's exchange would hold 11.3 per cent of the combined entity, triggering the involvement of Canadian regulators.

"If we wanted the deal to go through, we would go below 10 percent," the official said on condition of anonymity.

The deal between the two exchanges has been clouded by mounting criticism in Canada over a foreign entity, such as the Borse Dubai, owning even a part of the Toronto stock exchange.

Borse Dubai executives are also not completely confident that the deal between the LSE and TMX will produce long term value, the newspaper reported. One executive said Borse Dubai would only sell if it could find a strategic buyer at the right price.

"We're not going to sell down just to make it easier for Xavier Rolet (the LSE chief executive) to do the deal," the exchange executive told The National.

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