It looks as though London Stock Exchange Group has eyes bigger than its stomach. Digesting the $27 billion takeover of the data group Refinitiv, which it completed in January, is proving more uncomfortable than it had anticipated. It’s causing investors pain, too.
The shares are on course to end this year as one of the FTSE 100’s worst performers, having fallen by almost a quarter since January. That’s a sharp reversal of the big gains made by the stock over the previous two years that led to it looking as though the shares were about to break through the £100 mark.
The group has expanded far beyond the exchange, which started out in the late 17th century as a collection of coffee houses where merchants
