NYSE Euronext plans to sell over Rs 200 cr stake in MCX

Sale likely to be carried out through open market transaction, would be part of NYSE Euronext's objective to monetise non-strategic assets

Global exchange giant NYSE Euronext is considering a fresh bid to sell its nearly 5% stake in India's premier commodity bourse MCX, after an earlier attempt failed in March this year.

NYSE Euronext, which runs leading bourses in the US and Europe, holds 4.79% stake in Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) and its stake is currently valued at over Rs 200 crore.

According to the investment banking sources, NYSE Euronext will soon make a fresh attempt to sell its MCX stake, either in part or full, depending on the market conditions.

The sale would most probably carried out through an open market transaction and would be part of NYSE Euronext's stated objective to monetise non-strategic assets across the world. It had bought about 5% stake in MCX for about Rs 240 crore in June 2008.

The exchange has said in an investor presentation earlier that its MCX stake sale was expected to be concluded in the first half of 2013.

When contacted, an NYSE spokesperson did not offer any fresh comments and said that the company management had addressed the query during its earnings call in February.

At that time, NYSE Euronext's Group Executive Vice President and CFO, Michael S Geltzeiler, had said that the company was continuing to deliver on its commitment to optimise the business portfolio with "the planned sale of all or part of our MCX stake" among other steps.

NYSE Euronext is a leading global operator of financial markets and provider of innovative trading technologies.

Earlier in March, NYSE had tried selling nearly 24.42 lakh shares of MCX, amounting to a 4.79% stake, for about Rs 250 crore, but the sale was called off due to poor response from investors.