The London Stock Exchange faces a nail-biting fight for Canadian peer TMX Group after aggressive rival bidder Maple trumped its sweetened offer by a whisker overnight. The British bourse, which had hoped to win over Canadian shareholders of TMX by boosting its agreed $3.3 billion all-share bid with a $673.5 million special cash dividend on Wednesday, saw Maple retaliate just hours later.
Unashamedly nationalistic Maple, which is backed by 13 of Canada's largest financial firms, nudged its unsolicited cash and stock bid C$2 per share higher to C$50 a share, valuing its offer at C$3.8 billion ($3.88 billion). With just one week to go before crucial shareholder votes on the agreed LSE deal, LSE Chief Executive Xavier Rolet is battling to secure the scale and clout the bourse needs to fight off incumbent rivals, nimble new market entrants - and predators.
Some financiers not involved in the deal say Rolet has played his last hand. Betting against an escalating bid war, one said the prospects of securing TMX "did not look good". "It would look bad if they raised and then raised again just a week before the shareholder vote. It would be like a game of tennis," he added. Numis Securities analyst James Hamilton said: "I suspect the LSE shareholders will approve the deal on June 30 - whereas it is a close call which way the TMX shareholders will go. Under the London offer, TMX shareholders will receive 2.9963 LSE Group shares for each TMX share, leaving LSE shareholders with control of 55 percent of the new company and TMX shareholders with 45 percent.
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