Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. agreed to buy Sweden’s OMX AB for 25.1 billion Swedish kronor ($3.7 billion), pushing into Europe after two failed attempts to acquire London Stock Exchange Group Plc, Bloomberg reports.
Nasdaq offered 208.1 kronor a share in cash and stock, or 16 percent more than Stockholm-based OMX’s closing price yesterday, the companies said in a statement today. OMX, founded in 1985, was the world’s first publicly listed bourse, and operates seven Nordic and Baltic exchanges.
OMX, Europe’s fifth-largest stock exchange, gives Nasdaq a foothold across the Atlantic to compete with NYSE Group Inc., which acquired Euronext NV, Europe’s No. 2 exchange, last month. Nasdaq Chief Executive Office Robert Greifeld abandoned a yearlong battle in February to buy LSE, the region’s biggest bourse, and settled on OMX to add stock and derivatives trading in Europe and enter the market for software to run securities exchanges.
“Nasdaq has been able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat,” says Octavio Marenzi, CEO of Celent LLC, a financial research and consulting firm in Boston. “The fit between OMX and Nasdaq is a comfortable one with both organizations being technology-driven firms.”
OMX shares jumped 20 kronor, or 11 percent, to 200 kronor in Stockholm, giving the company a market value of 24.1 billion kronor. Nasdaq shares fell $1.30, or 3.8 percent, to $32.68 at 9:39 a.m. in New York.