Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority has approved Borse Dubai's 32 billion crown ($5.04 billion) cash offer for Nordic stock exchange operator OMX AB, Borse Dubai said in a statement on Saturday.
This translates into an 'all-cash offer' at 265 crowns for each share to the shareholders of OMX, Borse Dubai said in the statement.
The bid has also been recognised by the financial supervisory authorities in Iceland and Finland.
The move comes a few days after the US authorities cleared the deal involving Nasdaq. Once the offer is completed, Nasdaq will buy all of Borse Dubai's shares in OMX, through a combination of cash and new Nasdaq shares.
"The combination of Borse Dubai's direct holding in OMX, the exercise and physical settlement of options relating to OMX shares and the completion of the irrevocable undertakings entered into by certain selling shareholders will result in Borse Dubai upon or shortly after completion of the Borse Dubai offer becoming the owner (directly or indirectly) of approximately 58.3 million OMX shares, representing approximately 48.3 per cent of OMX's issued share capital and votes, without taking into account any additional OMX shares that may be tendered in the Borse Dubai offer," the statement said.
Shareholders of OMX who are registered in their names with the Swedish, Danish or Icelandic Securities Depository, respectively, or in the Finnish book-entry securities system, will receive the offer document by regular mail.
The acceptance period for the Borse Dubai offer will commence on January 8 and end on February 5 at 11.59pm New York time.
Settlement is expected to begin on or around February 12 in Iceland and on or around February 15 in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the conditions for completion of the Borse Dubai offer. "Borse Dubai reserves the right to extend the acceptance period, as well as to postpone the settlement date," it said.
HSBC Bank is acting as financial adviser to Borse Dubai. Borse Dubai Limited was incorporated on August 7, 2007, in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and is registered with the DIFC Registrar of Companies under number 0447.
Borse Dubai is 60 per cent owned by the Investment Corporation of Dubai, 20 per cent by Dubai Group LLC (a member of the Dubai Holding Group) and 20 per cent by DIFC Investments. ( Gulf )