As reported by Reuters, the Tokyo Stock Exchange will takeover its smaller rival in Osaka in 2013 to create the world’s third-biggest bourse with listed stocks worth $3.6 trillion, aiming to build scale to cope with a weak home market and compete with a flurry of global tie-ups.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange’s $1.7 billion takeover of the Osaka Securities Exchange Co (8697.OS) brings together two bourses that have operated separately for more than a century with the exception of a brief merger during World War Two.
The Tokyo market controls more than 90 percent of cash equity trading while Osaka, located in the economic center of western Japan, draws the top volumes in Nikkei index futures and other derivatives.