London Stock Exchange rejects $39 billion offer
Shares
LONDON: The London Stock Exchange (LSE.L) emphatically rejected the Hong Kong bourse’s $39 billion takeover offer on Friday, opting to stick with its planned purchase of data and analytics group Refinitiv.
The Hong Kong exchange will now likely have to go hostile and present a better offer directly to LSE shareholders if it wants to keep alive its hopes of becoming a more global player to rival U.S. giants ICE (ICE.N) and CME (CME.O).
The LSE told HKEX in a letter that it had fundamental concerns about key aspects of the proposal which it said had no strategic merit, and that HKEX’s relationship with the Hong Kong government would “complicate matters”.
HKEX’s valuation of the LSE falls “substantially short” and the “ongoing situation in Hong Kong” adds to uncertainty for shareholders, the London bourse added, a reference to weeks of pro-democracy street protests in the former British colony.
