A CONSORTIUM of London Stock Exchange Group’s (LSEG) investors sold £1.6 billion (S$2.7 billion) worth of shares in the company, bookrunner Morgan Stanley said on Wednesday (May 15), in a deal that ends Thomson Reuters’ interest in the firm.
The consortium has sold an aggregate of approximately 17.3 million voting ordinary shares at a price of 9,150 pence a share via a placing to institutional investors and a separate offer to retail investors.
As a result of the sales, Thomson Reuters will no longer hold any interest in LSEG and the Relationship Agreement will terminate in accordance with its terms, the bookrunner said.
The placing price represented a premium of 1.1 per cent on LSEG’s closing share price on May 14.
“To price at a premium for a deal of this scale is unprecedented, demonstrating demand for LSEG’s stock and the liquidity of London’s market,” a spokesperson for LSEG said.
“The entire sell-down of the Blackstone Consortium’s stake, since LSEG acquired Refinitiv, is also the largest ever stake in a European corporate sold by any non-sovereign entity,” the spokesperson added.
GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
LSEG bought Refinitiv in January 2021 for US$27 billion to compete more effectively with global market data leader Bloomberg.
LSEG pays Reuters for news. REUTERS
