The London Stock Exchange's bid to acquire the Toronto stock exchange collapsed Wednesday after it became clear that stockholders would oppose the merger, according to dpa. In a statement, TMX Group which owns the Toronto board said it had agreed with the LSE Group to terminate the agreement. TMX shareholders were to have voted on the deal on Thursday, but proxy votes already cast had indicated "that the two-thirds threshold required to approve the merger would not have been achieved," TMX said. London's bid for the Canadian exchange had been challenged by a Canadian consortium, which filed a hostile rival bid and lobbied for support by other investors with an appeal to their sense of patriotism. The consortium, Maple Group Acquisition Corp, offered a 3.8-billion-dollar takeover plan. LSEG had offered 3.45 billion dollars. TMX Group chief executive Tom Kloet said he still believed that a TMX-LSEG merger would "accelerate its business strategy ... create shareholder value" and enhance the "performance of Canada's capital markets." TMX will pay 10 million dollars to LSEG for the termination. If the Toronto exchange then accepts the offer from Maple Group within 12 months, it will have to pay the London exchange another 29 million dollars. The TMX Group had been negotiating the sale since February. The fight over the Toronto Stock Exchange was overshadowed by an even larger battle to the south over the fate of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). In May, the US technology stock index Nasdaq retreated from its takeover bid for the NYSE, clearing the way for Deutsche Boerse to push forward with its long-pending fusion plans that will create the world's largest trading platform.
