Euronext said on Thursday it would buy 66% of Nord Pool's share capital and voting rights. The deal gives the whole of Nord Pool an enterprise value of 850 million Norwegian crowns (72 million pounds), the two companies said.

The Nord Pool group was created in 1993 and offers power trading, clearing, settlement and associated services in both day-ahead and intraday physical energy markets.

"By joining forces with Euronext, Nord Pool will be even better positioned to support the shift to new ways of managing power supply in the face of climate change and the transition to sustainable growth," said Euronext Chief Executive and Chairman Stephane Boujnah.

Euronext, which is also in a tussle with Swiss company SIX Group to acquire Spanish bourse BME, expects the Nord Pool deal to close in the first quarter of 2020.

"With its 140 highly skilled employees, Nord Pool will strengthen Euronext's objective to grow its presence in the Nordics and reinforce the center of excellence for commodities managed from Oslo since the acquisition of Oslo Borse VPS," Boujnah added.

Euronext is a relatively small player compared with European rivals LSE and Deutsche Bourse, but has gradually built up scale in equities, operating exchanges including Norway, Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Mark Potter)