The U.S.-based Nasdaq stock market has failed in its bid to acquire the London Stock Exchange.
Nasdaq Saturday said the London exchange's stockholders decided overwhelmingly not to accept the hostile bid offer worth over $5 billion.
Nasdaq acquired nearly 29-percent of the London exchange's shares, but needed to get more than 50-percent of the shares by the deadline today to successfully take over the exchange.
The head of Nasdaq said the group was "naturally disappointed" with the bid's failure, but he remained confident that the final offer represented, in his words, "a full and fair price for LSE stockholders."
The London exchange had urged its stockholders to reject Nasdaq's bid, calling it "wholly inadequate."
Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.