Bangladesh approved China’s bid for a 25% stake in Dhaka Stock Exchange

Beijing. February 23. Silkroadnews - Bangladesh said it would sell a 25% stake in the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) to a Chinese consortium by rejecting offers from India’s National Stock Exchange, US’s Nasdaq, and others.
“Bangladesh’s premier bourse directors had decided to accept the Chinese consortium’s proposal as it looked acceptable to them considering financial and technological aspects,” media reported.
They approved the proposal by the consortium of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and Shanghai Stock Exchange at the board meeting, said the DSE managing director Majedur Rahman.
According to him, in the near future they will send the proposal to the regulatory bodies, the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges are among the best exchanges in the world boasting $3.5 trillion and $2.2 trillion market capital, respectively.
The DSE market capitalization is more than $51.42 billion.
Another consortium of India’s National Stock Exchange, Frontier Bangladesh and US Nasdaq also participated in the bidding.
Earlier, a representative of the DSE said that the National Stock Exchange in Mumbai has offered 15 taka ($0.18) per share to buy a 25.1% stake in DSE.
Officials said the Chinese consortium offered to buy a 25% stake in the DSE for 9.9 billion drams ($122 million) at Tk 22 taka per share. In its proposal, the Chinese consortium noted that it would spend more than Tk 3 billion ($37 million) on the technological upgrade of the exchange.
The DSE is trying to attract foreign investment in the process of corporatization to get technical and technological support from strategic partners for further modernization of the exchange.
According to the 2013 corporatization scheme, 25% of the 1.8 billion shares of the DSE will be sold to strategic partners, 35% to small investors, and 40% to holders of the Trading Right Entitlement Certificate or TREC.