RS Brief news MICEX acquisition of RTS shares temporarily delayed

MICEX acquisition of RTS shares temporarily delayed

August 2011

At the beginning of August the Federal Antimonopoly Service extended the examination period for Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange's (MICEX) application to acquire a 100% interest in the RTS Stock Exchange, because a representative for the agency judged that the transaction may lead to limited competition in the market for exchanges, depositories, and clearing houses. The application's examination period was extended by two months.

A framework agreement for MICEX Group's acquisition of RTC shares was signed in 2011 by the shareholders of the two exchanges. A single trading platform, capable of competing with the leading world exchanges, is essential for creating an International Financial Hub in Moscow. It is expected that consolidating the major Russian exchanges would have a favourable effect on the securities trading market and its participants.

However, at an Extraordinary General Meeting of MICEX and RTS shareholders, held on August 5, 2011, a reorganisation of the companies by means of a merger of RTS and MICEX was approved.

RTS shareholders also approved a pay-out of RTS stock dividends for the first half of 2011 and a new version of the RTS Articles of Association. For their part, in addition to approving the RTS transaction, MICEX shareholders voted to split MICEX common stock. As a result of the split, the authorised capital of the exchange will be divided into 1,659,840,000 common shares, with a par value of 1 rouble each. The decision was also made to increase MICEX's authorised capital by placing 537,575,000 secondary common shares, with a par value of 1 rouble each, by converting common and privileged RTS shares into common MICEX shares.