The Montreal Exchange plans to go public next spring and list its shares for all to buy.

In an announcement Friday, Luc Bertrand, president and CEO, said the exchange directors made the final decision to go ahead with a listing Thursday night.

"The time has now come," he said in a news conference Friday morning, adding that the issue has been debated for more than six years. "We see a good window of opportunity. There is a strong demand for the shares."

A public listing will also raise the profile of the exchange, attract more strategic investors and allow the current owners to sell their holdings in an orderly manner.

He added that the exchange has now reached a level of maturity that justifies a public listing. It is Canada's oldest exchange, with a world-level expertise in complex derivatives, options and other financial instruments.

It is vertically integrated, with one of the fastest and best technologies available, and it is a significant shareholder in the Boston Options Exchange, a U.S. automated equity options exchange.

"This is a very important step in the history of the company," he said.

Bertrand said the board has decided against an initial public offering (IPO), but few other decisions have been made.

"We are at a very early stage in a process that can take a few months to complete," he said, adding that he expects to go public in March or April next year.

That timing was chosen because there is currently a strong demand for the shares, and a March listing would give time to publish the year-end financial results, issue a prospectus and list the shares.

The exchange currently has 300 shareholders, mainly former seat-holders who traded their seats for shares when the market took its current form in 2000.

Three of the shareholders each hold more than 10 per cent of the shares outstanding, UBS Warburg, pension fund manager Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Quebec-based National Bank.

Bertrand said he didn't know the size of their individual holdings.

Another 14 per cent of the shares outstanding are held by 137 employees of the exchange. Bertrand is one of the owners, but he declined to say how many shares he owns.

Bertrand also declined to say what the exchange is worth.

There are currently about 9.3 million shares outstanding. They last sold for $17 each, in an auction in May 2005, placing the value of the exchange at about $160 million.

But there are reports that some shares have been selling privately for as high as $60 in recent months, a price that would value the exchange at about $600 million.

Bertrand has not decided where the stock will be listed or the opening price. That will be left for a valuation sometime after the 2006 year-end figures are announced in February.

'Not an IPO': Bertrand

Bertrand also denied that the exchange was for sale. There have been persistent rumours that the Toronto Stock Exchange is keen on acquiring the Montreal Exchange and its expertise in derivatives.

"This does not mean we are selling the exchange," he said. "There are no discussions with the TSX. We're listing the shares to allow investors to buy shares in a publicly listed environment."

"This is not an IPO," he insisted. "We will only do a listing. We will not issue any treasury stock. It is hard to justify issuing treasury shares to satisfy the liquidity needs of a handful of investors."

The exchange cannot justify a fully fledged IPO, he said. It already generates adequate cash for its needs and there is no point in issuing more shares, a process that would dilute the shares already outstanding.

The Montreal Exchange is one of many public stock markets that have gone public in recent years, part of a wave of global consolidation.

The TSX Group, which owns the Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange, went public in 2002. Since then, the value of TSX Group's shares have quadrupled to Thursday's closing of $45.70.

NYSE Group Inc. is planning to merge with Euronext, a pan-European stock and derivatives exchange.

The Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. wants to buy the 75 per cent of the London Stock Exchange that it doesn't already own. And the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is buying the Chicago Board of Trade for $8 billion US.