[June 17, 2008] JSDA eyes Jasdaq stake sale to Osaka bourse by end of August+ Tweet (Japan Economic Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) TOKYO, June 17_(Kyodo) _ The Japan Securities Dealers Association, the largest stakeholder in Jasdaq Securities Exchange Inc. for start-up businesses, expects it will finish selling part of its stake in Jasdaq to the operator of the Osaka stock market through a tender offer by the end of August, the JSDA chairman said Tuesday. "If the price-setting procedure (for Jasdaq shares) goes smoothly, I think it could finish around that time at the earliest," JSDA Chairman Toshio Ando said at a news conference. The JSDA, the brokerage industry's self-regulating group, plans to sell at least a controlling stake in Jasdaq out of its roughly 72 percent stake in it to Osaka Securities Exchange Co. Jasdaq formed a new management team last week and agreed on a proposed integration of its trading system with the OSE, paving the way for the OSE to launch a tender offer for Jasdaq operator shares this summer. The OSE is expected to eventually merge its Hercules market for emerging companies with the Jasdaq market. The expected merger between the Jasdaq market, which lists about 950 start-up companies, and the OSE's Hercules market, which lists over 170 such companies, will realign the flagging Japanese bourses for emerging companies to pit the Jasdaq-OSE integrated market against the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market. Trading activities for start-up markets in Japan have languished especially since the dramatic fall of Internet firm Livedoor Co. in 2006 due to accounting fraud. Jasdaq fell into the red with a group net loss of 1.53 billion yen in fiscal 2007 that ended March 31. Its trading value has been more than halved to 10.8 trillion yen in 2007 from 23.3 trillion yen in 2006. Copyright ? 2008 Kyodo News International, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]