The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has decided to offer board seats to two of its foreign shareholders — Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) and Deutsche Boerse (DB).

These two stock exchanges had picked up 5 per cent stake each in the BSE which was demutualised last year. They had made an investment of Rs 380 crore for buying the 5 per cent stake in the exchange at Rs 5,200 per share.

“We have decided to offer Singapore Stock Exchange and Deutsche Boerse (DB) seats on the BSE board,” chairman Jagdish Capoor said on the sidelines of a book launch here. The proposed move is expected to bring more professionalism and energy to the oldest exchange in the country. Sebi had earlier reportedly objected to the BSE plan to offer two board seats to foreign shareholders. The NSE already has NYSE-Euronext’s representative on its board. The BSE — which is lagging far behind its rival NSE in derivative business —has also shortlisted candidates for the post of managing director, now lying vacant following the resignation of Rajnikant Patel recently. Without divulging any name, Capoor said, “We have shortlisted the names.”

BSE’s former chairman Shekhar Datta and board member Jamshyd Godrej had also resigned recently.

Capoor made it clear that the BSE was not going ahead with its plan to acquire a stake in the National Multi Commodity Exchange. On exchange-traded currency futures, Capoor said that “more or less, we are prepared for launching it after regulatory approvals are received. A few things may be remaining on our side. But there are no major issues.” The currency futures segment will be managed by a separate division of the exchange.

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