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Toronto and London Stock Exchange merger called off

Toronto and London Stock Exchange merger called off The Board of CanGEA at the Toronto Stock Exchange (Source: TMX)
Alexander Richter 4 Jul 2011

The TMX Group (mother company of the Toronto Stock Exchange and Toronto Venture Exchange) and the London Stock Exchange have terminated their planned merger.

Reported last week, the proposed merger between TMX Group (mother company of the Toronto Stock Exchange and Toronto Venture Exchange) and the London Stock Exchange is off the table.

“Declaring it unlikely they would receive required shareholder support, TMX Group and the London Stock Exchange terminated their planned merger Wednesday.

The move, ahead of a planned vote Thursday morning, paves the way for a hostile bid for TMX by a consortium of financial institutions.

TMX Group said in a statement that a majority of its shareholders who cast votes by proxy prior to the June 28 deadline approved the tie-up, but that the two-thirds threshold required for the deal to go ahead would not be achieved.”

While some people see the call-off positive for the listed geothermal players on the exchange, others say it won´t have any impact. Fact is that the Toronto Exchange has over the years established itself as a leading natural resources exchange and provided a good basis for geothermal companies. The only other exchange that has a geothermal presence is the Australian Stock Exchange.

The combination with the AIM market, part of the London Stock Exchange, I believe there could have been synergies that could have helped creating a stock market interest in geothermal energy companies in Europe. But maybe I have been too hopeful on that.

With every stock exchange there is a certain element of national interest and proposed cross-country exchange mergers always create a certain stirr.

One can only hope that markets will get better for geothermal companies, as the stock prices for geothermal companies both in Canada and Australia have taken a serious beating.

Source: Financial Post