LONDON: The London Stock Exchange Plc. rejected a 1.5 billion-pound indicative takeover proposal from Australia's Macquarie Bank, describing it as ''derisory''.
LSE said Friday the 580 pence-a-share cash offer from the bank "fundamentally undervalues the company and lacks any strategic or commercial credibility".
Macquarie has been in the field since August to acquire LSE but Britain's takeover panel set a 15 December deadline for the bank to reveal its proposal or walk away.
LSE shares were being traded at 613-1/2 pence Friday morning, valuing the bourse at 1.6 billion pounds.
LSE has earlier been approached by Deutsche Boerse with a 1.4 billion-pound offer, but it withdrew following resistance from its own shareholders. Subsequently Pan-European exchange Euronext expressed its interest, but Britain's Competition Commission said Euronext can be a bidder only when it dilutes its holding in its clearing house. Another recent suitor has been Swedish exchange OMX, but details of its offer are not known.
Macquarie is Australia's largest investment bank. Its offer was with conditions -- like a review of due diligence information it had requested-- and it said it cannot provide any assurance that it would make a formal offer.
The bank oversees funds that control $84 billion of assets, which include the Brussels airport to the Chicago Skyway toll road. Its 19 publicly traded investment funds have made acquisitions totalling $11.7 billion in 2005, including Virginia's Dulles Greenway turnpike and Copenhagen-based TDC A/S's yellow-pages unit.
Posted
on : Fri, 09 Dec 2005 14:05 GMT | Investments News
By : Anne Philips
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