Borse Dubai, a majority stake-holder of Dubai Financial Market, has sold a 672 million-dollar share of its stake in Nasdaq OMX to help repay a 2.45 billion-dollar loan that matures in February. The company sold 22.78 million shares for 497 million dollars to Nasdaq OMX itself, and eight million shares worth 175 million dollars to Nomura, it said in a statement carried by local media onDecember 17.
Borse Dubai, owned by the Dubai government holding group Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), also raised 428 million dollars through a three-year loan arranged by Nomura and government-owned Emirates NBD bank for the repayment of the same loan.
It said it reached an agreement with its existing banking group to complete the refinancing of the remaining portion of the 2.45 billion-dollar loan which matures by the end of February.
The Financial Times said that Borse Dubai was forced into a quick sale as the maturity date of its loan loomed while it failed to conclude a strategic sale of its assets.
Borse Dubai had acquired a 28-percent stake in Nasdaq OMX in 2008 through a deal in which it sold its then recently acquired Nordic and Baltic stock exchange operator OMX to the US exchange, Nasdaq.
It also holds a stake of about 20 percent in the London Stock Exchange and a one-third stake in Nasdaq Dubai, with DFM holding the other two thirds.
The deal comes after Dubai announced it might sell some of its assets in order to repay debt piled during five years of economic boom.