The London Stock Exchange will buy Italian markets operator Borsa Italiana SpA for more than $2 billion, the two exchanges said in a joint statement on Saturday, MarketWatch reports.
Under the terms of the deal, every shareholder of Borsa Italiana will receive 4.9 shares of the London Stock Exchange for each ordinary share of the Milan exchange.
The offer values Borsa Italiana at 1.63 billion, or $2.2 billion, and represents a value of 100.7 per Borsa Italiana share. The combined group will be worth 5.8 billion.
By accepting the LSE offer, Borsa Italiana rebuffed a rival offer from the NYSE Borsa Italiana and LSE will remain separate legal and regulatory entities and will maintain their existing brands.
London Stock Exchange Group plc will be the holding company of the combined group and, in addition to its listing in London, it intends to seek a listing on Borsa Italiana, the statement said. The combined group will operate under a U.K. corporate governance structure with a unitary board made up of 12 directors — seven of them British and five Italians.