(Adds appointment of new CEO, approval from CVM)
By Leonardo Goy and Guillermo Parra-Bernal
BRASILIA/SAO PAULO, March 22 (Reuters) - Brazil's antitrust watchdog Cade on Wednesday approved financial bourse BM&FBovespa SA's takeover of rival clearinghouse Cetip SA Mercados Organizados, and will not require any antitrust measures beyond those the firms proposed themselves.
Three of four Cade board members decided to endorse the 12 billion-real ($3.9 billion) deal, which will involve independent pricing monitoring and platform access to rivals in terms previously proposed by the companies to the agency.
Cristiane Alkmin, the case's rapporteur, had sought tougher restrictions beyond those the companies agreed to.
Ultimately, the plenary of Cade voted 4-0 to approve the deal, with the self-imposed restrictions. Shares of both companies surged.
In a widely expected move, BM&FBovespa's takeover of Cetip also received regulatory approval from the securities and exchange industry watchdog CVM on Wednesday, the body said in a statement.
The spike in shares was "mainly due to the approval of the deal with remedies that were not very onerous," said Tito Labarta, an analyst with Deutsche Bank Securities in New York.
The deal will give BM&FBovespa control of Cetip, Latin America's largest securities clearinghouse, with almost full control of Brazil's market for registration and custody of local fixed-income instruments and over-the-counter derivatives.
The companies said in a joint statement that Gilson Finkelsztain, chief executive officer at Cetip before the merger, would take over as CEO of the new company from May 1.
Currently BM&FBovespa enjoys a near monopoly on all trading, clearing and settlement services for locally traded shares and bourse-traded derivatives. Trading transactions in Brazil are settled through a central counterparty clearinghouse, a complex and capital-intensive venture that for years has helped drive newcomers away from BM&FBovespa's turf.
The so-called concentration control accord that BM&FBovespa presented to Cade agreed to create a committee to monitor pricing on some products and analyze requests from potential market newcomers to pay for the use of clearing and payment settlement platforms within the next 120 days.
Terms of self-imposed remedies will remain in place for five years.
Shares of BM&FBovespa closed 3.1 percent higher at 18.94 reais, after jumping as much as 7.1 percent during the session. Cetip's stock added 1.4 percent to 48.30 reais.
BM&FBovespa announced the deal in April, following repeated attempts to buy Cetip. The transaction would create the largest market structure player in Latin America, with stakes in Mexican, Colombian, Peruvian and Chilean counterparts.