CME Group sweetened its offer for New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) on June 23 announcing that it will buy back $1.1bn in stock over the next 18 months, plus pay a $5 per share dividend if the Nymex deal is approved.
With the dividend, CME Group is inching closer to what many Nymex shareholders would find acceptable. The value of the overall deal, originally priced at $11bn in March, has slumped badly in recent weeks to just over $8bn as CME Group share prices fell. Under the new stock repurchase, the deal will get a bump to about $9.7bn. The deal still calls for Nymex members to receive $36 and 0.13223 CME Group shares per Nymex share. Rough estimates say that will push the price to close to $100 per Nymex share, a more palatable...