September 26 (SeeNews) - The Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) said on Tuesday its shareholders approved the proposed acquisition of the Independent Bulgarian Energy Exchange (IBEX).
BSE shareholders also approved a proposal to finance the acquisition through proceeds from the sale of government securities which the BSE owns, the bourse said in a statement.
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Last month, the BSE said it had reached an agreement with state-owned Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) to acquire the IBEX for 5.2 million levs ($3.1 million/2.7 million euro).
The BSE will make an initial down payment of 4 million levs, while the remaining 1.2 million levs will be paid in three equal semi-annual instalments.
The transfer of ownership of IBEX was requested by the European Commission in December 2015 to prevent abuse of dominant position. BEH, which pools state-owned energy assets, committed to offer certain volumes of electricity on an independently-operated day-ahead market on a newly-created power exchange and transfer ownership of the new power exchange to the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance.
Under the Commission’s decision, dated December 12, 2015, BEH was given six months from the date of formal notification of the decision to transfer the ownership of IBEX’s capital to the Ministry of Finance.
Subsequently, following BEH’s request for opinion, the European Commission said that the BSE is a more appropriate buyer of IBEX than the Ministry of Finance and the deadline for transferring ownership was extended to October 2017.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)