A consortium comprising France’s Euronext and Italian state-lender CDP is among bidders for the bond-trading platform of the London Stock Exchange’s (LSE) Borsa Italiana unit, two sources said on Saturday.
One of the sources said Deutsche Boerse and Swiss stock exchange Six had also presented bids for the MTS platform used for trading Italy’s huge sovereign debt.
The non-binding bids for a stake of more than 60% in MTS are all in the range of 300-350 million euros, the sources said.
Italian daily la Repubblica reported on Saturday that the U.S. stock exchange Nasdaq had also presented a non-binding offer, as well as the bidders cited to Reuters.
Italy, which sits on Europe’s second biggest debt pile as a proportion of national output, sees the MTS unit as an asset of strategic interest.
It has approved ‘golden power’ legislation to block takeovers of key companies in sectors including market infrastructure, like Borsa.
Sources told Reuters earlier this week LSE had set deadlines for indicative bids for all or parts of Borsa Italiana in a move to help it win European Union approval for its $27 billion takeover of data company Refinitiv.
The deadline for non-binding bids for all of Borsa Italiana Group, which besides the 62.5% of MTS also controls the Milan stock exchange and a clearing and settlement system, is Sept. 11, they said.
The Italian-French consortium, Six and Deutsche Boerse are interested in bidding for the whole of the Italian stock market and a bid for MTS is a precondition for proceeding, one of the sources told Reuters.
The EU’s competition regulator has expressed concern a combination of MTS and Refinitiv, which owns bond platform Tradeweb, would have a large market share in European government bond trading.
Source: Reuters.com