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Everyone wants the LSE

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29 February 2016
Brad Bailey

I cannot imagine that too many people are surprised that there are others who would like to own the London Stock Exchange (LSE); ICE has just confirmed and CME is said to be considering a bid. I do not even want to attempt to count, beyond the three times that Deutsche Boerse has attempted to acquire LSE, the numerous other bids and courtship talks that have arisen over the years. In each case, however, it was a case where the courtship failed to make it to vows.

At the same time, any banker worth his/her salt will be making noise around the possibility of other bids, to maximize economic value of the deal. Furthermore, in the case of a freely available exchange (which is mostly not the case given national protection, and the historical pride associated with having a national exchange), they rarely remain single for long. In the regulatory and trading environment in which we live, there is tremendous operational scale in very large exchanges. The technology infrastructure and maintenance cost is high, and global regulation, generally favors a migration to exchange trading and central clearing. And, given the turmoil that blockchain might cause in the exchange and clearing landscape, it will require high levels of R&D budget.

Additionally, the continued march toward multi-asset trading, across all asset classes is another factor in this steady drive toward global mega-exchanges. As we have seen the desire for more and more insight, analytics, TCA, and best-execution in equities, we have seen the same call, in FX, and now the clarion is sounding for fixed income.

Exchanges with the breadth of product, depth of experience, and vision of a multi-asset future are best positioned to compete with the best product mix, clearing choices, and regulatory insight for their customers. A deal with LSE is not going to be easy as the competitive concerns will have sovereign and European regulators deeply concerned about the implications on equity trading and clearing dominance. Finally, on a European level the deal makes sense; the German and UK exchanges merging under the European flag.

However, the UK is not so sure it wants to remain as part of Europe. The Brexit discussion might translate into strong national feelings of pride for the LSE.

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