By Adedapo Adesanya
The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has completed the acquisition of a data firm, Refinitiv, for £20billion ($27 billion).
The deal creates a company to rival the likes of Bloomberg, S&P Global and Intercontinental Exchange in everything from data to clearing and trading.
The Refinitiv takeover includes taking on the data provider’s net debt of £9 billion, while the investors selling Refinitiv, led by US private equity giant, Blackstone, will get a 37 per cent stake.
Speaking on the deal, LSE chief executive officer, Mr David Schwimmer, explained that his main focus was now on completing the integration of LSE and Refinitiv, bolstering the exchange’s indexes business with data from Refinitiv, and broadening out share trading with fixed income and forex trading.
He added that much of the integration has already been planned, despite both companies grappling with pandemic restrictions.
“I wouldn’t recommend trying to do a large scale integration in the context of a global lockdown, but the team has done a fantastic job,” Mr Schwimmer said.
Earlier this month, the European Commission, which regulates companies, backed the deal, paving the way for the LSE to form a powerhouse in financial markets.
The mega-deal reportedly saw the advisers and investment bankers who worked on it earn more than £830 million.
Mr Schwimmer said he wanted the government to push ahead with listing rules reforms to make the London stock market a serious challenger to Wall Street in the United States.
He warned that Britain will miss out on the next wave of tech companies to list on the stock market unless it overhauls its rules fast.
The market for financial information has exploded with the advent of computer-driven trading, triggering a flurry of takeovers as companies seek to create one-stop shops to serve clients and get an edge over traditional rivals in supplying data, dubbed the “new oil”.
