The stock market was less than generous to the shares of its parent London Stock Exchange Group yesterday. It knocked 24p off the price in response to a workaday set of annual results that raised more questions than they answered.
Total income rose by 18.5 per cent to £7.7 billion, taking pre-tax profit 38.8 per cent higher to £1.2 billion. Basic earnings per share jumped by 65.3 per cent to 141p, enabling a fully funded 107p dividend, up 12.6 per cent. In revenue terms, the star was capital markets, with income up 24.6 per cent. Data and analytics, the main revenue generator, was a healthy 20.5 per cent higher, leaving post-trade services the laggard, with 9.4 per cent growth.
The group is increasingly a data
