LSE agrees to buy 60% of LCH.Clearnet pushing shares up 8%
London Stock Exchange jumped to the top of the mid-cap risers after it agreed to buy a majority 60% stake in clearing house LCH.Clearnet for €463m (£388m), ending months of talks.
Clearing houses charge clients a fee to guarantee deals in case one side defaults. The sector is booming under new regulations brought in since the financial crisis. All in all, good news for the LSE, which rose 77p to 975p.
The FTSE 100 was broadly flat on Friday morning, down 0.01% to 5859 points. The index rallied strongly on Thursday ahead of the Greek debt swap going through. Now the deal is done, it seems like the party is over.
My colleague Katie Allen notes that most of the announcements on plans to rescue Greece and the eurozone have been followed by short-lived rallies, then a sell-off as caution sets in over the next day or so.
Oil also rallied ahead of the deal, and stayed high this morning at $125 a barrel.
The mid-cap index was 0.4% higher at 11504 points.