Microsoft buys near 4% stake in London Stock Exchange and launches 10-year partnership

LONDON — U.S. tech giant Microsoft on Monday announced a 10-year partnership with the London Stock Exchange Group and took a near 4% stake in the U.K. bourse operator.

The partnership involves next-generation data and analytics, as well as cloud infrastructure solutions, according to a statement by the LSEG. It involves a new data infrastructure for the London exchange and analytics and modelling solutions with Microsoft Azure, AI, and Microsoft Teams.

“This strategic partnership is a significant milestone on LSEG’s journey towards becoming the leading global financial markets infrastructure and data business, and will transform the experience for our customers,” David Schwimmer, CEO of LSEG, said in the statement.

Microsoft will purchase an approximately 4% stake in the U.K. firm from the Blackstone/Thomson Reuters Consortium.

The release also said that Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s executive vice president for the Cloud and AI Group, will be appointed as a non-executive director of LSEG.

LSEG’s shares were seen up 4% or 5% ahead of the market open in Europe on Monday.

Satya Nadella, the chairman and CEO of Microsoft, said: “Advances in the cloud and AI will fundamentally transform how financial institutions research, interact, and transact across asset classes, and adapt to changing market conditions.”

The London Stock Exchange agreed to buy financial information firm Refinitiv back in 2019 in a deal that was valued at $27 billion.

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