Nasdaq to take deal-making holiday: Greifeld
Scott Malone, Reuters
Published: Thursday, November 29, 2007
NEWTON, Mass. -- Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. expects to take a break from its torrid pace of deal-making next year so it can absorb its recently announced acquisitions, its chief executive said on Thursday.
"We're going to take some time to digest them," said Robert Greifeld, president and chief executive of the second-largest U.S. stock exchange.
This year Nasdaq reached deals to take over the Philadelphia and Boston stock exchanges and to buy Nordic market operator OMX jointly with Borse Dubai.
Asked in an interview if "some time" meant that Nasdaq would be unlikely to seek out new deals next year, Mr. Greifeld replied: "That's a realistic assumption."
"We have a goal of having acquisitions accrete to our shareholders by the end of the first year," Mr. Greifeld said. "We will go to a somewhat longer time-frame to get through the larger acquisitions. OMX will certainly be somewhat longer than that, but not so much longer that you don't have control on both internal and external events."
Mr. Greifeld said he expects the OMX deal to close in early 2008.
"When these deals that we're doing now are accreting to our shareholders would be the time for us to consider alternative plans," he continued.
WAVE OF CONSOLIDATION
Nasdaq has been an aggressive player in a wave of consolidation among the world's securities exchanges over the past three years, including the merger that created NYSE Euronext, which runs the largest U.S. stock exchange as well as European exchanges.
Nasdaq this year also sold off a 30% stake in London Stock Exchange Group PLC, which it had amassed as part of a takeover run that ultimately proved unsuccessful.
Mr. Greifeld said Nasdaq has no further interest in making future runs at the London Stock Exchange.
"We're looking forward to closing the OMX transaction; we're looking forward to using OMX as our platform on a pan-European basis," Mr. Greifeld said. "The management team is incredibly capable and we're quite proud of what we've seen them accomplishing the last few years. We believe that this is the proper management team to work with Nasdaq to take advantages of the opportunities that exist in Europe."
Mr. Greifeld spoke to Reuters after addressing a meeting of financial executives in Newton, Mass., outside Boston, organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management.
© Reuters 2007
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