London Stock Exchange (LSE) said its proposed merger with Deutsche Boerse AG was unlikely to be approved by the European Commission (EC), leaving the stock market operators’ third attempt at combining on the brink of failure.
The LSE said in a statement late on Sunday that the commission had asked it to sell its 60 percent stake in fixed-income trading platform MTS to satisfy antitrust concerns over the merger of Europe’s two largest market operators.
Calling the request “disproportionate,” the British exchange said it believed that it would struggle to sell MTS and that such a sale would be detrimental to its ongoing business. “Based on the commission’s current position, LSE believes that the commission is unlikely to provide clearance for the merger,” it said.
The exchange added that it would still work to make the merger with Deutsche Boerse succeed, but that would be impossible unless the EC changed its position. The commission and Deutsche Boerse declined to comment.

Source: Arab News