DUBAI, March 7: Borse Dubai could seek a 40 per cent stake in the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE), when Pakistan’s biggest bourse becomes a shareholder firm, a newspaper reported on Friday.

“Borse Dubai, the holding company for Dubai’s stock exchange business, could seek 40 per cent of ... KSE,” Dubai-based Gulf News said in a report based on remarks by Adnan Afridi, KSE managing-director.

“They (Borse Dubai) have expressed an interest that as and when the process begins they will be interested in participating,” it quoted Mr Afridi as saying.

It did not give a quote from the KSE managing-director about the size of the stake Borse Dubai would be seeking, but reported him as saying, “We would be selling up to 40 per cent.” State-run Borse Dubai said in August it would be interested in buying into the KSE but did not give details about the size of the stake it could seek.

Mr Afridi said several firms were mulling a KSE holding.

“A number of exchanges have expressed interest and Dubai is one of them. We have not had any formal discussion on this topic,” he said. “We are waiting for the ordinance to be signed by the president to go into law. After that we will have 120 days to corporatise.” Shaukat Tarin, chairman of the KSE, told Reuters in June that Deutsche Bank had been appointed to value the exchange and to advise on its listing.

The main stakeholders of the exchange are its members, whose stake will be converted into shares. They will then sell some of those shares through an initial public offering.

The country’s chief regulator said in July that Nordic and

Baltic bourse owner OMX had shown interest in buying a stake in the KSE. OMX has since been bought by the Dubai International Financial Exchange, of which Nasdaq Stock Market Inc owns around a third.—Reuters