Maple Group Acquisition Corporation, the consortium of 13 financial institutions and pension funds looking to take control of the company that runs the Toronto Stock Exchange, extended its offer Thursday to Oct. 31. The proposal to acquire up to 80% of the shares of TMX Group Inc. was set to expire Friday.
The offer is part of an integrated acquisition transaction, valued at approximately $3.8 billion, to acquire 100% of TMX Group shares.
In addition to the Toronto Stock Exchange, TMX owns the junior TSX Venture market, the Montreal Stock Exchange, which trades in the growing futures and derivatives market, and NGX, the Calgary-based market that trades and clears physical crude oil, natural gas and electricity contracts.
A friendly merger between TMX and the London Stock Exchange was called off earlier this year because there was not enough TMX shareholder support in the face of the richer Maple bid.
As part of its bid, Maple plans to buy all of Alpha Trading, an alternative trading system owned by the major players in the Canadian securities industry including the big banks, and CDS Inc., a clearing and depository firm, and add them to TMX Group to create a bigger Canadian-based exchange.
Some critics have said that would create a virtual monopoly that could lead to higher fees and create enforcement and transparency issues.
The investors in Maple Group are: Alberta Investment Management Corporation, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, CPPIB, CIBC World Markets Inc., Desjardins Financial Group, Dundee Capital Markets Inc., Fonds de solidarité des travailleurs du Québec (F.T.Q.), GMP Capital Inc., National Bank Financial Inc., Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Scotia Capital Inc., TD Securities Inc. and The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company.