Deutsche Boerse lowers threshold necessary for tie-up with LSE to proceed

Deutsche Boerse lowered the threshold of shares which needed to be tendered in order for its merger with the London Stock Exchange to continue moving forward.

HLDCO123 plc, the holding company set up to implement the all-share merger, lowered the threshold of Deutsche Boerse shares it would require to be tendered for the tie-up to go through from 75.0% to 60.0%.

The shares would still be subject to the requirement that they be tendered before the end of the acceptance period.

Monday´s decision, which had already been widely speculated upon, was motivated by the need to make it easier for index funds to tender their shares.

That meant reaching a minimum 50% threshold for the number of Deutsche Boerse shares tendered.

For the Stoxx and MSCI indices the respective thresholds were 75% and above.

In parallel, and due to the technicalities involved in replacing the untendered shares in benchmarks such as the Dax with tendered shares, HLDCO123 plc said it would also offer an extension to the initial offer period by two weeks.

Hence, the acceptance period of the exchange offer would now extend until 26 July.

HoldCo noted that Gregor Pottmeyer, Deutsche Börse´s chief financial officer, said: "With this step we respect the technical barrier of 15% of our shareholders, namely index funds, which are not able to tender their shares prior to the replacement of the untendered shares by the tendered shares in the respective index.

"Deutsche Börse will adjust the index calculation for its blue chip index DAX two days after the 50% threshold is exceeded. This change in procedure is a purely technical one. We are confident that we will reach the 75% threshold in the course of the full tender process."