This archive report was first published on 11 September 2019.
September 11, 2019
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has made a bold move by offering $36.6 billion to buy its London counterpart, in a bid to create a global trading giant.
The deal, however, is far from certain, as it depends on the London exchange abandoning its own deal to buy Refinitiv, a data company.
On Wednesday, the London exchange said it would consider the unsolicited offer from Hong Kong but remained committed to completing the Refinitiv deal.
Executives at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, the company that owns the Hong Kong exchange, dismissed concerns about the deal's viability, citing their company's successful purchase of the London Metal Exchange in 2012.
Charles Li, chief executive of Hong Kong Exchanges, said, 'We are not a Chinese company, and we are not even a simple Hong Kong company. We are a global company.'
The Hong Kong exchange's offer represents a ringing endorsement of London's future as a global financial hub, despite the uncertainty stirred up by Britain's effort to leave the European Union.
Under the Hong Kong exchange's offer, shareholders of the London exchange would receive a mix of cash and stock that would value the company at $36.6 billion, roughly 20 percent more than the shares were valued at earlier this week.
