London Stock Exchange Group plc (LSEG) has earlier today provided an update on its acquisition of Refinitiv.

Let’s recall that LSEG said on January 19, 2021, that completion of its all-share acquisition of Refinitiv, and re-admission to listing and trading, is expected to occur on January 29, 2021.

Today, LSEG confirms that, subject to completion of its all-share acquisition of Refinitiv occurring on 29 January as expected, 179,610,123 consideration shares comprising:

1. 112,254,597 voting ordinary shares with a nominal value of 679/86 pence each; and

2. 67,355,526 limited-voting ordinary shares with a nominal value of 679/86 pence each (which limited-voting ordinary shares will not be admitted to listing or trading),

will be issued to the Refinitiv Sellers to satisfy the consideration due under the terms of the transaction.

LSEG also confirms that admission of the entire enlarged voting ordinary share capital of LSEG to the premium segment of the Official List and to trading on London Stock Exchange’s Main Market is also expected to take place at 8:00 am on January 29, 2021.

Let’s recall that, on January 13, 2021, the European Commission announced its approval of the acquisition of Refinitiv by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). The approval is conditional on full compliance with a commitments package offered by LSEG.

To address the Commission’s competition concerns, LSEG offered the following commitments:

• To divest its 99.9% stake in the Borsa Italiana group, which includes MTS (LSEG’s trading venue for EGBs), to a suitable purchaser. In this regard, on October 9, 2020 LSEG and Euronext signed a definitive and binding sale and purchase agreement. This commitment fully removes the horizontal overlap between the companies’ activities in EGB electronic trading.
• To continue offering its global OTC IRD clearing services performed by LCH Swapclear on an open access basis and to not engage in commercial strategies that would discriminate customers based on the source of their OTC IRD trade submitted to LSEG for clearing.
• To provide access to the LSE venue data, FTSE UK Equity Indices, and WM/R FX Benchmarks to all existing and future downstream competitors. More specifically LSEG commits to not degrade technology, quality or service compared to that provided intragroup. LSEG also commits to maintain an information barrier between the personnel handling sensitive information of LSEG’s customers and Refinitiv’s CRTD and desktop service businesses to ensure that there is no exchange of such information with Refinitiv that could negatively impact third party data vendors.

The commitments also include a fast track and binding dispute resolution mechanism that can be relied upon by third parties who believe that LSEG does not comply with these commitments. A trustee will monitor the implementation of the commitments, and act as a point of contact for potential complainants, including in the context of the fast track dispute resolution mechanism.