LSE sells Borsa Italiana to Euronext for €4.3bn

(Sharecast News) - London Stock Exchange has agreed the sale of Borsa Italiana for about €4.32bn (£3.9bn) to Euronext, the company said on Friday.
The company is selling Borsa Italiana to get approval for its $27bn purchase of financial data business Refinitiv, announced in August 2019.

LSE chief executive David Schwimmer said the company continued to make good progress on the "highly attractive" Refinitiv transaction.

"We believe the sale of the Borsa Italiana group will contribute significantly to addressing the EU's competition concerns. The Borsa Italiana group has played an important part in LSEG's history. We are confident that it will continue to develop successfully and contribute to the Italian economy and to European capital markets under Euronext's ownership."

Euronext will finance the deal through €1.8bn of new debt and a €2.4bn capital raise, including a €700m private placement with CDP and Intesa SanPaolo, and a rights offer to existing shareholders.

The sale is seen as politically sensitive in Italy due to Borsa's ownership of bond platform MTS which handles electronic trading of Italian government bonds and other fixed income securities.

Euronext operates bourses in Paris, Amsterdam and Dublin among others. The Borsa deal will strengthen its equity operations, with the combined group operating exchanges with more than 1,800 listed companies and an aggregate market value of around €4.4trln euros.

"Euronext will significantly diversify its revenue mix and its geographical footprint by welcoming the market infrastructure of Italy, a G7 country and the third largest economy in Europe," Euronext chief executive Stephane Boujnah said in a statement.