7th Sep 2023 11:04
(Alliance News) - Major shareholders in London Stock Exchange Group PLC sold a 5% stake in a placing to institutional investors and offer to retail investors, worth GBP2.2 billion in total.
The sale of a 4.6% economic and 5.1% voting interest in LSEG for GBP2.0 billion was part of a monetisation exercise by the investor consortium, led by asset manager Blackstone Inc, that also involved the sale of call options over LSEG shares and the sale of additional shares to hedge the call options.
Additionally, LSEG itself bought back 9.5 million shares from consortium members.
The institutional and retail sale of 25.5 million shares was done at a price of 7,950 pence per share, and the LSEG share buy back was done at 7,894p.
LSEG shares were down 1.5% at 8,144.00 pence on Thursday morning in London.
The share sale was managed by Barclays Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley as joint global coordinators and joint bookrunners.
It was first announced after the market close on Wednesday and follows a variation of lock-up arrangements put in place between LSEG and the investors upon the completion of LSEG's acquisition of market-data vendor Refinitiv early in 2021.
The investor consortium - which also includes affiliates of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, GIC Special Investments Pte and Thomson Reuters Corp - additionally sold call options over 8.2 million LSEG shares, representing a further 1.5% economic and 1.6% voting stake in LSEG. To hedge the call options, the group sold another 2.7 million shares at the 7,950p placing price.
That brings the total value of the placing and retail offer to GBP2.2 billion.
LSEG won't receive any money from the share sales, as they involve existing shares.
By Tom Waite, Alliance News editor
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