(From left) CSE chairman Udayan Bose, shareholder directors Sanjay Budhia and Sunil Mitra in Calcutta on Thursday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, May 15: Two international stock exchanges have shown interest in picking up stakes in the Calcutta Stock Exchange (CSE).

“A couple of prominent western European stock exchanges have approached us for picking up a 5 per cent equity stake each in the CSE and we’ll discuss these proposals at our board meeting tomorrow,” Udayan Bose, chairman of the exchange, said while addressing reporters here today on the eve of CSE’s centenary celebration.

According to Bose, these foreign bourses also proposed to develop the forward and options market segment of the CSE. “The forward and options segment had been an area of strength for the CSE and this was evident in the huge volume of badla trading on the bourse carried out in the past. We want to develop this core competency to bring this century-old stock exchange back to life,” he added.

In 2001, the CSE plunged into a payment crisis following the Ketan Parekh scam and in the following six years the exchange faced a lot of trouble.

However, in August last year, the bourse began demutualisation and was able to attract 25 institutional investors, including the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which picked up a 51 per cent equity at a price of Rs 2,000 a share.

Demutualisation is a process of becoming a corporate entity by divesting a 51 per cent stake to private investors.

The BSE’s stake buy paved the way for CSE’s revival. Under an arrangement between the two, companies that are exclusively listed on the CSE would get a window for trading on the BSE platform.