The owner of the Hong Kong stock exchange has made a £32 billion bid approach to the London Stock Exchange Group in an audacious attempt to pounce on the British company before it can complete a deal of its own.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) stunned the City this morning by announcing it was planning a cash-and-paper offer of £83.61 a share for the LSE on condition that the UK company scraps its $27 billion deal to buy Refinitiv, the financial data business, from Blackstone and Thomson Reuters.
A takeover of the London exchange by its Hong Kong rival would create a financial infrastructure giant and pose a stern test of the British government’s appetite for foreign acquisitions of strategic UK assets.
HKEX,