Euronext, Europe’s largest stock exchange operator, will get even bigger after it agreed to purchase Borsa Italiana (the operator of the Milan Stock Exchange) from the London Stock Exchange, or LSE, for 4.3 billion euros ($5.1 billion).
The deal is complex and involves many stakeholders across the continent and U.K.
LSE entered into exclusive talks with Euronext last month on the deal after two other major European stock exchange operators — Germany’s Deutsche Boerse and Switzerland’s SIX — were muscled out of the picture.
LSE’s proposed disposition of Borsa Italiana is linked to its own plan to purchase data provider Refinitiv for $27 billion. LSE is still seeking regulatory approval from the EU for that transaction. (Refinitv is 55%-owned by Blackstone Group and 45%-owned by Thomson Reuters)
LSE’s acquisition of Refinitiv would transform LSE into a “capital markets infrastructure and information powerhouse, controlling widely-used services in share, bond and swaps