A consortium of investors including Blackstone Inc. and Thomson Reuters Corp. are looking to sell about £2.3 billion ($2.9 billion) worth of stock in London Stock Exchange Group Plc.
(Bloomberg) — A consortium of investors including Blackstone Inc. and Thomson Reuters Corp. are looking to sell about £2.3 billion ($2.9 billion) worth of stock in London Stock Exchange Group Plc.
The group, which also includes Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, plan to offload 28.3 million shares, according to a regulatory filing.
Separately, LSE notified the investors that it plans to make an off-market purchase of approximately £750 million worth of shares, the filing said.
The consortium is made up of the former owners of Refinitiv, a data services giant that LSE acquired for $27 billion in 2021. The group has spent much of the year offloading large chunks of the exchange. In March, they announced the sale of about £2 billion of the shares and in May, they kicked off a process to sell about £2.7 billion.
About 2.8 million of the shares being offered are a hedge to call options put in place by the consortium, which could allow them to sell more LSE shares.
The consortium still holds 51.9 million voting shares in the exchange, with 11.3% of voting rights, according to the latest filing. After the latest sale, the remaining shares will be subject to a 180-day lockup, according to the filing.
Barclays Plc, Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley are arranging the share sale.
LSE Chief Executive Officer David Schwimmer has previously said the company will look to “support an orderly sell down” 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.
The placement attracted enough investor demand for all the shares on offer within minutes of deal launch, according to a term sheet seen by Bloomberg.
(Updates with LSE buyback plans in second paragraph, Refinitiv background in third.)
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