Singapore's stock exchange is preparing to launch a takeover of its Australian counterpart to form a 14 billion dollar (13.8 billion US) alliance, a report said Saturday.The Singapore Exchange is expected to announce a 6 billion dollar takeover bid for the sharemarket operator Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on Monday, The Australian newspaper said without citing sources.
The ASX could not be contacted Saturday but ahead of the weekend it requested a two-day trading halt on its shares, saying "a party has recently re-activated discussions with ASX concerning a possible business combination"."ASX does not have any information to disclose at this time but has observed an increase in the ASX share price today," it said in a statement on Friday.
A tie-up between the Australian and Singapore stock exchanges, which have market capitalisations of some 6.1 billion US dollars and 7.9 billion US dollars respectively, would require government approval.But a merger between the Australian and Singapore exchanges would be in line with the global trend towards consolidation between exchanges, former Merrill Lynch Australia chief executive Greg Bundy told The Australian."Singapore and Australia are the most progressive of the exchanges in this time zone, they are the market leaders, and it could be they are getting together to pre-empt the involvement of Japan and Hong Kong, both of which have had their issues," he said.
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