Deutsche Boerse delays vote on LSE merger, OM Gruppen formalizes bid

BERLIN - Germany's Deutsche Boerse on Monday delayed a vote on its troubled plan to combine with the London Stock Exchange, as a rival bid for the British exchange threatened to derail the creation of Europe's first powerful counterweight to Wall Street.

''A new date has not been fixed yet,'' Deutsche Boerse said in a statement. ''With the postponement, Deutsche Boerse is keeping all its options open.''

Shareholders in Deutsche Boerse, which has suggested it may make a sweetened offer, were to vote on the planned merger - to be dubbed the iX - Thursday.

Deutsche Boerse had insisted it would go ahead with the vote even after the LSE called off a similar move to give its shareholders time to react to a hostile takeover bid from OM Gruppen AB, the operator of Sweden's Stockholm exchange.

OM Gruppen formally presented its bid Monday.

''Our offer today brings state-of-the-art technology, clarity, and real commercial drive that will secure London as Europe's leading exchange,'' OM Gruppen's chief executive Per Larsson stated in a news release.

Deutsche Boerse supervisory board chairman Rolf Breuer said its combination with the LSE remains the ''most attractive option.''

Meanwhile, Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Monday that the New York-based Nasdaq Stock Market was to join OM's bid. The paper did not identify its sources for the report.

''We have no comment on that,'' Jakob Haakanson, head of investor relations at OM Gruppem, told Dow Jones Newswires. ''We neither deny or confirm it.''

OM Gruppen was founded in 1985 and, apart from owning the Stockholm exchange, provides technology to stock exchanges, banks and brokers in more than 20 countries.