NYSE Euronext sells entire MCX stake in December quarter

In December, Euronext NV holding in MCX has declined to below 1% mark from 4.73% at the end of September quarter.

Global exchange giant NYSE Euronext has sold its entire of around 5% stake in the Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) for about Rs 100 crore during October-December quarter.

The world’s leading and most diverse financial market group through its affiliate Euronext NV held 2.4 million or 4.73% stake in MCX as of September 2013.  Euronext NV holding in MCX has declined to below 1% mark, the December quarter shareholding pattern data shows.

Euronext NV had bought this stake in MCX for about Rs 240 crore in June 2008.

Euronext NV has might sold these shares in price between Rs 400-Rs 500 per share. The average price of MCX for October-December quarter was around Rs 457.

On December 19, 2013 Euronext N V sold 565,000 shares of MCX at Rs 427.02 on the NSE, the bulk deal data shows.

Commodity market regulator Forward Markets Commissions (FMC) on December 17 2013, said Jignesh Shah and his firm Financial Technologies India (FTIL) are not 'fit and proper' to run any exchange in the country.

The regulator said National Spot Exchange's (NSEL) payment troubles made FTIL an unfit operator of commodities exchanges and ordered it to cut its stake of 26% in MCX to less than 2%.

Meanwhile, total foreign institutional investors (FIIs) holdings in MCX have declined by nearly 12% to 25.23% in December from 36.79% at the end of September quarter.  The domestic Institutional Investors also reduced their stake in the company to 14.32% from 15.22% earlier.

Most of the shares were acquired by the non-institutional investors including bodies’ corporate and individual investors.

Total holdings of non-institutional investors have increased by 12.46% to 34.45% (21.99%). Of these, individual investors raised their stake to 18.7% (13.33%) and bodies corporate to 13.15% (7.01%) during the quarter.

Religare Finvest has increased its stake in MCX to 1.92% in December quarter. A private non-banking financial institution held nil holding at the end of September quarter, the data shows.

Shares of MCX was trading 2.3% higher at Rs 537 on the BSE, rallied 12% from Rs 478 on December 31, 2013 compared to nearly 1% decline in benchmark S&P BSE Sensex during the period.