ACML to offload more BSE shares

The Ahmedabad Stock Exchange Capital Markets (ACML) is aiming at offloading 6,000 shares of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

The exchange is expected get a nod from the BSE by the end of this month. Once the transaction is completed, ACML's holding in the BSE would come down to 1,000 shares.

"We had earlier decided to sell 2,500 shares of BSE. However, given the existing dull position of stock markets and attractive prices, we have decided to sell 6,000 shares," Bhadren Darji, chief executive officer of ASE Capital Markets, told Business Standard. He, however, refused to disclose the deal amount.

The stake sale, if it goes through, will be the first open market sale of BSE shares after the oldest Asian bourse demutualised last May when it sold 51 per cent stake to strategic and financial investors including Germany-based Deutsche Bourse and the Singapore exchange.

ACML, a subsidiary of Ahmedabad Stock Exchange, the second oldest bourse in the country, is selling a part of its holding in the BSE for the second time in 12 months. It sold 3,000 shares at the time of the demutualisation last May.

Sources said ACML had invited bids for purchase of BSE shares. ACML has a net worth of Rs 10 crore, which it fears might decrease in the near future and hence the move.