The London Stock Exchange Group has confirmed press speculation that it is looking to acquire financial markets data provider Refinitiv for around $27bn (£21.83bn) from Blackstone and Thomson Reuters in an all-stock deal.
The British stock exchange company said that it is in advanced discussions with a consortium made up of certain investment funds affiliated with Blackstone and Thomson Reuters. The Blackstone’s consortium involved in the talks also includes an affiliate of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, an affiliate of GIC Special Investments along with certain co-investors.
London Stock Exchange said that there is no guarantee that the discussions will lead to a transaction.
What Refinitiv does
Based in London, Refinitiv provides financial data and infrastructure across the world. The company offers data, insight and analytics that are customised to workflows across its four key customer segments of investment and advisory, trading, wealth, and risk management.
Refinitiv is said to cater to more than 40,000 customer institutions in 190 countries including buy and sell-side companies, governments, financial technology firms, market infrastructure companies, and corporations.
The company’s trading venues business includes the Tradeweb trading platform, in which it has a majority stake, and the FXAll and Matching platforms, among others.
Its data platform is said to have more than 150,000 data sources, and is a major provider of real-time pricing, reference data, commodity, economic, quantitative and research data among others.
London Stock Exchange expects to hold a stake of around 63% in the enlarged group with the existing Refinitiv shareholders to own the remaining 37% stake should the transaction take place.
The stock exchange company said that it monitors global investment trends and the changing regulatory landscape on a continuous basis to anticipate future requirements of customers. Furthermore, it said that the digital transformation of the financial markets infrastructure landscape and also the increased potential for innovation is pushing customer demand for sophisticated data content and analytics available on flexible and open platforms.
The strategic rationale behind the acquisition is that the London Stock Exchange’s board believes that a major financial markets infrastructure provider should have operations globally and across asset classes, with data management, analytics and distribution capabilities that can cater to customers across asset classes and geographies.
