Maple Group offers C$3.6 billion for TMX
16 May 2011
According to Maple Group Acquisition Corp, a consortium of Canadian banks and pension funds, its takeover proposal for the TMX Group valued the largest stock market operator in the country at $3.6 billion.
Under the all-Canadian, cash and equity takeover proposal from Maple Group, a share of TMX Group is valued at $48 and beats a friendly $3 billion bid from the London Stock Exchange. According to critics the LSE proposal would move control of the country's largest stock market to London.
"We believe our offer constitutes a superior proposal under which shareholders would receive cash, plus the opportunity to continue to participate in the company's ongoing growth," Maple spokesman Luc Bertrand, vice-chairman of National Bank Financial Group, said in a statement yesterday.
On completion of the transaction, shareholders of TMX Group would own about 40 per cent of Maple's outstanding shares while pension fund investors would own about 35 per cent and the bank-owned investment dealers owing 25 per cent.
Maple says no shareholder would own over 10 per cent of Maple's total shares outstanding.
According to Maple, its counter-bid proposal also looked at a combination of TMX Group with Alpha Group, an alternative trading system founded by Canada's biggest banks and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board.
