Friday December 21, 06:50 PM
OMX reports purchase of some Nord Pool carbon emission assets
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STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Stock market operator OMX (Stockholm: OMX.ST - news) said Friday it would pay about 2.3 billion Norwegian kroner (286.5 million euros, 413 million dollars) for part of the business of Scandinavian electricity and carbon emissions market operator Nord Pool.
OMX, which runs Nordic and Baltic stock exchanges, said the acquisition covered consultancy activities, clearing operations and also international derivative products managed by Nord Pool.
The market for trading in electricity is undergoing consolidation and there is increasing interest in the market for the trading of CO2 carbon emissions.
OMX said it intended to create a leading business in international trading of energy derivative products.
OMX spokesman Jonas Rodny told AFP: "We are looking into expanding the current Nord Pool derivatives offering to other parts of Europe, so surely this will compete with existing parties."
An analyst at the International Energy Agency, Kamel Bennaceur, said there was growing interest in Europe for traded energy derivatives linked to CO2 emissions because of a difference between current prices on the Emission Trading System for the trading of permits to emit CO2 and prices quoted for 2008-2009.
Norwegian interests were particualy active in this field, he said.
OMX is to buy all of two subsidiaries of Nord Pool, Nord Pool Clearing, which deals with clearing transactions, and Nord Pool Consulting, together with a third business set up especially to group togtether Nord Pool's international activities in the trading of electricity and of CO2 emission rights.
These assets, with the exception of Nord Pool Clearing, would form the basis of a new business in energy and raw materials, to be based in Oslo, OMX said.
Nord Pool Spot, which handles casy trading, is not a part of the deal.
OMX is to pay 2.15 billion kroner when the deal is concluded in the middle of next year, as well as 450 million kroner in the form of so-called vendor notes and further payments of up to 800 million kroner linked to activity in the five years following the purchase.
OMX estimated the total cost at 2.3 billion kroner but said it expected to make annual econmies of scale of 60 million kroner before tax. Consequently the acquisition would begin to have a positive effect from next year, it said.
OMX has been following an offensive strategy in northern Europe for several years, operaring stock markets in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Reykjavik, Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius.
But it is also in the midst of international deals that are likely to result in it coming under the control of US high-tech market Nasdaq (NASDAQ: news) market and Borse Dubai of the United Arab Emirates as part of a global agreement bgetween the two groups.
Meanwhile the US-European maket operator Nyse Euronext is preparing to buy Powernext carbon, which is to underpin an international CO2 quotas and credits market that the Nyse wants to develop with the giant, quasi-state French financial group the Caisse des Depots.
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