London Stock Exchange fights for £3bn Mongolian mine float

The intense competition faced by the London Stock Exchange became clear today when it emerged that one of the world's biggest mines is looking at two other bourses for its $5 billion (£3.07 billion) listing.

Tavan Tolgoi, an enormous untapped coal deposit in Mongolia, is set to announce the venue for its share offering, for a listing raising between $1.5 and $5 billion next year. Mongolian officials are vacillating between a dual and triple listing, on the Mongolian bourse plus either the Hong Kong Stock Exchange or London, or all three. The LSE, the NASDAQ and the HKSE are among the groups that submitted proposals to help privatise the asset.

Executives from some 20 investment banks visited Mongolia earlier this year to fight for a place on the lucrative deal. Of those, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas and Macquarie were shortlisted. The fundraiser is expected to lead to several other massive Mongolian listings.

LSE chiefs visited Mongolia in April and signed an agreement to modernise the country's financial infrastructure and stock-market system.