Bursa Malaysia has denied allegations that its Chief Executive Officer Datuk Yusli Mohamed Yusoff turned down an offer to discuss a merger with the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).

Bursa Malaysia categorically denies the allegations made in the article published in the website Taikors and Taikuns titled 'When Bursa spurned an ASX merger offer, Singapore's Stock Exchange (SGX) jumped in', the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange said in a statement to Bernama when asked on the article.
No such discussions took place, Bursa said.

The exchange said it took a serious view of the inaccurate or misrepresented statements in the article. We request that the website retract/correct the inaccuracies in the article.

The article meanwhile did not mention its news source, retaining anonymity.

It alleged that when the CEO of ASX visited here in June to make a bold offer to his Malaysian counterpart to merge Bursa Malaysia and ASX as equal partners, he was dismissed offhand by Yusli without even referring to Bursa's board for consideration.

ASX Managing Director and CEO Robert Elstone is said to have then turned to his second choice bourse of an Asian bourse by placing a call to the Singapore Exchange CEO Magnus Bocker.

After which over the next 16 weeks, Bocker is said to have cobbled together an offer for SGX to make an outright bid to buyout ASX in late October.

Meanwhile in another news report on October 24, SGX confirmed that it would buy Australia's main stock exchange operator, ASX, for about A$8.4 billion.

The merger is aimed at warding off the threat of alternative trading systems, to line up new avenues for growth and to cut costs.

The deal when it goes through will be the first major consolidation of Asia-Pacific exchanges and will result in A$30 million in cost savings.

SGX is offering 22 Australian dollars a share in cash as well as 3.473 of its own shares for each ASX share.

The deal will need approval from Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board. Singapore's exchange is 23 per cent owned by the Financial Sector Development Fund, which is controlled by Singapore's central bank. -- Bernama