Britain's Competition Commission is to delay until the end of July publication of provisional findings of its inquiry over takeover bids for the London Stock Exchange, it said today.
'The date indicated for notifying provisional findings is the week ending July 29,' a spokeman said. The commission had intended to publish initial findings in early July ahead of a final report on September 12.
Britain's Office of Fair Trading had referred separate bids for the LSE to the Competition Commission on March 29, delaying by months a possible takeover of Europe's biggest stock exchange.
The OFT had referred the proposals of Deutsche Boerse, operator of the Frankfurt stock exchange, and pan-European exchange Euronext. Deutsche Boerse made an offer at the end of January for 530 pence per share or just under €2 billion for the LSE. However, it withdrew the proposal on March 6 in the face of fierce resistance from London and stiff pressure from its own shareholders.
The German exchange has reserved the right to make a renewed offer should Paris-based Euronext turn an informal offer into a formal bid.
Euronext, operator of the exchanges in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Lisbon, sees synergies worth €203m from a merger. That amount was twice that of its German rival Deutsche Boerse, which predicted synergies of €100m from 2008 if it won the battle to acquire the LSE.
Meanwhile, the London Stock Exchange said that June had been its best month for company flotations in more than four years. The number of initial public offerings (IPOs) on the main market of the exchange last month was the biggest since November 2000, the LSE said.
There were 15 IPOs during the month, which generated a total of £1.9 billion - the largest sum of money raised by offerings on the main market since July 2001.
AIM, the London Stock Exchange's market for small companies with high growth potential, saw 36 IPOs during the month, raising almost £553m between them. International companies accounted for 10 of the 51 IPOs on the exchange in June 2005.
