The Nasdaq Stock Market on Monday put its entire stake in the London Stock Exchange on the block, saying the market isn’t correctly valuing its holdings of the U.K. bourse that it previously tried to buy.
The Nasdaq, which holds 31 percent of the London Stock Exchange, says it’s hired J.P. Morgan and UBS to explore alternatives. Nasdaq added it will use around $1 billion of proceeds from any sale to retire senior-term debt and would use the remainder to repurchase shares.
Selling the stake would increase Nasdaq’s earnings per share for 2008 by around 30 cents to 35 cents, the company said.
The LSE holding was worth around $1.56 billion at Friday’s closing price. LSE shares improved 2 percent to 1,295 pence after the Nasdaq announcement.