The Globe and Mail, Reuters, Bloomberg and others reported that Maple Group, composed of 13 Canadian financial institutions, extended its C $3.8 billion mixed cash and share offer for the TMX Group for a fourth time to February 29th.
Maple’s offer to acquire the TMX is subject to approval from provincial securities regulators and the Competition Bureau, which commenced a second-stage review in November, 2011.
Some of the potential issues the transaction raises include a high degree of concentration in the trading services market and access and pricing issues in relation to clearing and settlement services, as in addition to combining the TMX with Alpha (Canada’s second largest exchange) the transaction would also include the acquisition of CDS Inc., Canada’s currently not-for-profit equity and fixed-income securities clearing operator.
The Globe and Mail has reported for example that the Competition Bureau said Tuesday that “significant and material change to the competitive consequences to the proposed transaction would be required to sufficiently address the Commissioner’s concerns” (see: Hurdles remain on TMX-Maple proposal, regulator says).
According to Bloomberg, however, Maple has “recently” submitted a pricing model for CDS and proposed remedies to address concerns relating to the securities trading market.
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