| Life Insurance Corporation of India and State Bank of India too in the race. |
| The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) is selling another 41 per cent stake to 20 investors, including domestic and foreign financial institutions, for about $ 384 million, becoming the biggest private placement of equity ever to be held in the country. |
| Insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and State Bank of India (SBI) are among the investors, though no confirmation was available from the exchange. |
| “It is the largest 51 per cent private placement done in the country of about $ 478 million.This speaks of the franchise of the exchange,” said T V Raghunath, executive director-Investment Banking, Kotak Mahindra Capital, which is advising BSE on the sale. |
| In a press release, BSE said it has received response from 20 leading domestic financial institutions, foreign funds, high networth individuals and corporate houses for selling 51 per cent stake in the stock exchange. |
| BSE, which held its board meeting and extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on Thursday, announced that the demutualisation process has been completed. The deadline for completing the sale of 51 per cent stake held by broker members in BSE, Asia’s oldest exchange, is mid-May this year. |
| Recently, it sold 5 per cent stake each to Frankfurt-based Deutsche Boerse AG and Singapore Exchange at Rs 5,200 per share. The deal valued the exchange at $ 800 million. Deutsche Boerse is the world’s biggest stock exchange by market value. |
| The exchange has proposed to finalise the sale of 41 per cent of its shares to select investors at a price of Rs.5,200 per share, the same price at which it sold shares to the two foreign bourses. However, the sale of shares would be subject to the regulatory approvals. |
| “The response to BSE investment opportunity has been truly overwhelming and we are delighted to have as our investors domestic and foreign institutions.The new ownership pattern of the exchange will significantly strengthen its institutional character,” said Rajnikant Patel, managing director and CEO, BSE. |
| Deutsche and Singapore Exchanges were issued 3.6 lakh new shares of BSE. |
| Early this year, the world’s largest stock exchange – New York Stock Exchange – entered India by inking a deal to pick up a 20 per cent stake in the National Stock Exchange along with Goldman Sachs, General Atlantic and Softbank Asian Infrastructure. Last month, the remaining 6 per cent was picked up by Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Actis. |
| Foreign direct investment in domestic stock exchange is capped at 26 per cent and no single foreign investor is allowed to take over 5 per cent stake each. |
Source : Business Standard