Finance Watch

DEUTSCHE BÖRSE

LSE Shareholders Favor Merger Deal

The vast majority of London Stock Exchange Group PLC's shareholders are voting in favor of the exchange operator's merger with Deutsche Börse AG, people familiar with the matter said.

Shareholders controlling well over 75% of LSE shares have instructed proxy advisors to vote in favor of the deal at special shareholder meeting on Monday, these people said. LSE shareholder approval has been widely expected and would be in line with what two large proxy advisors recommended.

LSE declined to comment.

--Eyk Henning

ITALY

EU Authorizes Support for Banks

The European Commission has given Italy permission to use government guarantees to create a precautionary liquidity-support program for banks, a spokeswoman for the European Union's executive arm said, adding that the program was approved under the bloc's "extraordinary crisis rules for state aid."

The liquidity-support program includes up to EUR150 billion ($167 billion) in government guarantees, said an EU official.

The commission spokeswoman declined to comment on the amount of guarantees that were authorized, but said that the budget requested by the Italian government had been found to be proportionate.

The Italian economy ministry declined to comment.

The spokeswoman said only solvent banks would qualify for the liquidity support program, which has been authorized until year-end. "There is no expectation that the need to use this scheme should arise," she said.

--Valentina Pop

BOC Hong Kong

Southeast Asia Units Bought From Parent

BOC Hong Kong (Holdings) Ltd. has agreed to pay 5.91 billion yuan ($890.6 million) for two of its parent's units in Malaysia and Thailand in a bid to expand its presence in Southeast Asia.

The Hong Kong-listed flagship of Chinese lender Bank of China Ltd. said Thursday it agreed to buy the entire interest in Bank of China (Malaysia) Berhad from its parent company for 3.23 billion yuan. It will also pay 2.68 billion yuan for Bank of China (Thai) Public Co.

----Joanne Chiu

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 30, 2016 12:56 ET (16:56 GMT)

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