The Dubai Stock Exchange has finally signalled its willingness to sell its stake in the London Stock Exchange to Qatar. The deal would end a bitter rivalry between Dubai and Qatar over their involvement in the LSE.

The offer amounts to a stake swap between the Gulf states following Qatar’s decision to sell its holding in OMX, the Scandinavian exchange, to Dubai this month.

Essa Kazim, Borse Dubai’s chairman, commented, “If the Qatari Government wishes to strike a deal in the future, then it would be subject to negotiation.”

When the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) sold its 9.98pc stake in OMX to Dubai last week, some analysts believed that a reciprocal deal over the London exchange was off the table because Qatar had expressed no interest in acquiring Dubai’s LSE shares at the time.

In effect, Kazim said that Borse Dubai had not agreed to any deal “whatsoever”, but his comments suggest that a share sale could be negotiated.

In a complex transaction, Dubai and New York’s Nasdaq are expected to finalize a $4.9 billion (£2.5 billion) deal to buy OMX. Dubai would then pass OMX to Nasdaq in exchange for a 19.9pc stake in the new company. It would also acquire Nasdaq’s existing 28pc stake in the LSE.

Some of those shares could be sold then to Qatar, which currently owns 15pc of the LSE through $60 billion sovereign wealth fund. QIA is thought to want the stake to expand its own capital markets.