Bombay bourse to tap BofA's Kannan

The Bombay Stock Exchange, Asia's oldest bourse, plans to appoint Madhu Kannan as chief executive officer, two people with knowledge of the decision said.

Kannan's appointment may be announced as early as today, filling a vacancy nine months after Rajnikant Patel quit, one person said, requesting anonymity before an official announcement. Kannan previously worked at Bank of America Corp.

The Bombay bourse, founded in 1875, has lost ground to its younger rival the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd, which handles twice as many share trades and is the world's largest single stock futures market. The BSE's benchmark Sensitive Index has gained 23 percent this year after a record drop in 2008.