THE owner of the Dubai stock exchange is plotting to gatecrash an agreed £1.9 billion takeover of OMX, the Scandinavian-based exchange.

The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), which describes itself as “the world’s newest international financial centre” and owns the emirate’s fledgling stock exchange, has appointed HSBC to advise it on a potential counterbid for OMX.

The Scandinavian group operates exchanges in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and the Baltic states.

On Friday, OMX agreed to be taken over by Nasdaq, the aggressive New York exchange, which is run by chief executive Bob Greifeld. The proposed cash and stock deal would create a $7.6 billion (£3.8 billion) company with operations in eight countries and mark the third transatlantic tie-up between exchanges in the past 12 months.

The DIFC’s decision to consider a counterbid further underlines the international ambitions of the tiny Gulf state. Last year, Dubai Ports World, another arm of the Dubai government, seized control of some of the world’s most important ports when it acquired P&O.

The planned bid for OMX signals DIFC’s ambitions to raise Dubai’s profile in international financial markets.

Last year it built up a 3.5% stake in Euronext, the continental-exchanges operator now owned by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Several years ago, DIFC bought Euronext’s technology for its own exchange.

Previously the government-owned DIFC, which opened in September 2004, was best known for its headquarters on a 110-acre site that was said at one time to have employed 50% of the world’s cranes.

The site is the ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s self-professed vision to “create an environment for progress and economic development in the UAE and the wider region”. The Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX) opened in September 2005.

A year ago, Sheikh Mohammed recruited David Eldon, a former senior HSBC executive, and Cyrus Ardalan, vice-chairman of Barclays Capital, as chairman and director respectively of DIFC.

Two weeks ago it emerged that DIFC had built a 2.2% stake in Deutsche Bank. Earlier this month a fund managed by Dubai International Capital announced it had made a “substantial” investment in HSBC, the world’s fourth-largest bank. Meanwhile Istithmar, part of the Dubai government’s investment arm, has built a 2.7% shareholding in Standard Chartered, the UK-based emerging-markets bank.

DIFC’s planned bid marks the start of yet another episode in the long-running saga of global-exchange consolidation that started with Deutsche Börse’s ill-fated attempt to buy the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in December 2004.

In March the NYSE completed its acquisition of Euronext. Nasdaq is still thought to have ambitions to bid for the LSE, but is prevented by takeover regulations from bidding again until next February.

A combination of OMX, which is being advised by Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley, and the slightly larger Nasdaq, being advised by JP Morgan, would create a company worth 30% more than the LSE, which has a market value of £2.7 billion.

Shares in OMX had risen 3.2% to 180 kro-nor before being suspended in Stockholm on Thursday afternoon, while Nasdaq’s stock was halted, pending an announcement, just as trading closed in New York.

OMX has a derivatives business that ranks behind NYSE Euronext’s Liffe, and Eurex, controlled by Deutsche Börse. It is considered particularly attractive by other exchanges because of its innovative financial-trading technology.

Nasdaq said it planned to use the new generation of OMX technology as a base for the group. This would produce two-thirds of the $150m that both sides claim can be gained from the merger.

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