Blackstone, Thomson Reuters raise £2 billion in London Stock Exchange offering
A CONSORTIUM of investors including Blackstone Inc and Thomson Reuters Corp raised about £2 billion (S$3.4 billion) by offloading shares in the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) via an overnight placing.
The group, which also includes Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, sold 25.5 million shares at £79.50 apiece, said a statement Thursday (Sep 7). The price represents a 3.8 per cent discount to the exchange operator’s previous close.
The selling consortium is made up of the former owners of Refinitiv, a data-services firm that LSEG acquired for US$27 billion in 2021. The group has spent much of the year selling large chunks of shares in the exchange operator. In March, they announced the sale of about £2 billion of the shares; in May, they kicked off a process to sell about £2.7 billion.
The consortium also put call options in place over about 8.2 million shares, which would allow them to cut more LSEG stake down the line. An additional 2.7 million LSEG shares were placed in the latest offering as a hedge to the call options put in place by the sellers. Including this block, the share sale raised about £2.2 billion.
Separately, LSEG made an off-market purchase of 9.5 million shares worth about £750 million. The Blackstone consortium’s economic interest in LSEG has fallen to around 12 per cent after the latest sales, down from about 19 per cent, according to Bloomberg calculations. That number could drop to 11 per cent if the call options are exercised.
The selldown comes at a time when the exchange is grappling with an exodus of companies, and a sharp decline in local listings due to the lure of deeper capital pools in the US, and a persistent valuation discount for British stocks. The UK has responded by tweaking listing rules to make London a more attractive place for issuers seeking equity funding.
SEE ALSO
LSEG chief executive officer David Schwimmer has previously said the company will look to “support an orderly selldown” for the consortium. After the Refinitiv deal, the exchange now makes most of its money from data services. The parent company of Bloomberg News competes with Refinitiv to provide financial news, data and information. BLOOMBERG
Decoding Asia newsletter: your guide to navigating Asia in a new global order. Sign up here to get Decoding Asia newsletter. Delivered to your inbox. Free.
Share with us your feedback on BT's products and services
