Several Stock Exchanges Show Interest in Tiny Macedonian Bourse, It Says

Sixteen shareholders, which together own over 66% of MSE’s equity capital, had decided to launch a procedure for the sale of a majority stake to a strategic partner through a closed tender in a bid to strengthen MSE's position in the region, the bourse in Skopje said in a statement.

"The number of bourses which will participate in the tender meets the requirements for the process to be competitive", said the statement issued late on Friday.

The Macedonian Stock Exchange invited at the end of November all renowned European and regional bourses to show interest in bidding in a tender for the sale of control of MSE by December 15 at the latest, the statement added.

Croatian news portal poslovni.hr reported on Friday that according to unofficial data, the Vienna Stock Exchange and the Nordic Stock Exchange, OMX were interested in acquiring the Macedonian bourse.

Twenty local and foreign individuals and legal entities owned the MSE at the end of 2007. MSE was established in 1995 and the first trading on its floor occurred in 1996. Its assets totalled 392.77 million denars ($8.9 million/6.3 million euro) at the end of last year.

The average weekly turnover of the Macedonian bourse in the first three weeks in December was 117 million denars.

(1 euro = 61.8816 Macedonian denars)