London Stock Exchange gears up for major acquisition after £180m profit increase

A UK stock exchange has announced that both its revenue and profit increased by 8 per cent last year ahead of its acquisition of a multi-billion pound business.

The London Stock Exchange reported revenue of £2,056m, up from £1,911m, and profit of £2,314m, up from £2,135m.

During the period, the financial data provider acquired investor data income Beyond Ratings, and are currently planning the acquisition of financial markets firm Refinitiv.

The business will be acquiring Refinitiv, which has offices globally, in a £27bn deal.

The company’s dividends also went up, increasing 16 per cent from 60.4 pence per share to 70 pence per share.

David Schwimmer, CEO of the London Stock Exchange, commented: “It was another strong year for London Stock Exchange Group - delivering a good financial performance, making meaningful progress executing on our strategic objectives, and taking significant steps on a number of group-wide initiatives.

“The group continued to perform well, navigating an evolving macroeconomic and geopolitical landscape and remains well positioned for the future.

“We continue to partner with our customers to develop innovative services in a range of areas, from reference rate reform to sustainable investment.

“Our proposed acquisition of Refinitiv, a leading provider of data, analytics and financial markets services, will significantly accelerate our strategy to be a leading global financial markets infrastructure provider.

“Refinitiv brings highly complementary capabilities in data, analytics and capital markets as well as deep customer relationships across a global business.

“Detailed integration planning is underway to ensure we are ready to deliver the benefits of the transaction to our shareholders, customers and other stakeholders.

“We remain on track to close the transaction in the second half of this year.”