Microsoft To Buy 4% Stake In LSEG Via Acquisition Of Shares From Blackstone/Thomson Reuters

(RTTNews) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) agreed to purchase about 4% equity stake in London Stock Exchange Group Plc (LSE.L) through the acquisition of shares from the Blackstone/Thomson Reuters Consortium, LSEG said in a statement.

Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's Executive Vice President, Cloud and AI Group, will be appointed as a non-executive director of LSEG in due course subject to receipt of appropriate approvals.

As a result of LSEG granting the lock-up waiver, the number of LSEG shares that the Blackstone/Thomson Reuters consortium will be able to sell between 30 January 2023 and 29 January 2024 will be unchanged and the number of LSEG shares that the Blackstone/Thomson Reuters consortium will be able to sell between 30 January 2024 and 29 January 2025 will be reduced by half of the number of shares sold to Microsoft.

Under the terms of the Relationship Agreement, the lock-up ceases to apply after 29 January 2025. The share purchase will be subject to customary antitrust and regulatory approvals and is expected to complete in the first quarter of 2023.

As part of strategic partnership, LSEG and Microsoft have entered into a 10-year commercial agreement to migrate LSEG's data platform and other key technology infrastructure into the Microsoft Cloud.

LSEG noted that the infrastructure plan will be the foundation for the product development programs and enable LSEG to build and run scalable applications to achieve faster speed to market and greater customer reach.

The strategic partnership is expected to increase LSEG's revenue growth meaningfully over time as the key workstreams are delivered.

LSEG and Microsoft have agreed to co-invest in the product development roadmap for the data platform, Workspace, and analytics initiatives. LSEG's total incremental cash costs relating to the programs from 2023 to 2025 are expected to be in the range of 250 million pounds -300 million pounds.