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The London Stock Exchange Group plans to launch a £3bn share buyback as it comes under pressure from activist investor Elliott Management to improve its performance.
LSEG’s announcement on Thursday that it will launch an accelerated buyback programme over the next year comes as it grapples with a falling share price amid investor worries about the impact of AI on its business.
David Schwimmer, chief executive, defended the company’s resilience against the threat of AI, saying that it was “unlikely verging on impossible” that LSEG’s data could be replaced or replicated by the technology.
He said the group’s shares had been swept up in a broad sell-off and that “there’s a lot of uncertainty and a lot of lack of clarity among investors about what this technology could do”.
Elliott has built a significant stake in the company, the FT revealed this month, and has been pushing for a share buyback as part of its discussions with LSEG on how to improve performance.
The exchange group carried out £2.1bn of share buybacks in 2025 and plans £3bn of further buybacks by February 2027.
Its shares, which are down 26 per cent over the past year in response to market worries about the impact of AI on its business, jumped 6 per cent on Thursday morning in London.
Schwimmer said LSEG had held some discussions with Elliott, adding: “We welcome constructive engagement with all of our shareholders and we’re trying to do the right thing for all of our shareholders.”
He added that the buyback was a “good amount in terms of addressing the dislocation in the stock” and that the company had “no intentions or no plans at this point to conduct any disposals”, amid questions about whether its stake in electronic bond trading platform Tradeweb could be sold.
LSEG makes most of its money by selling access to markets data spanning bonds, equities, commodities and other asset classes to banks, brokers and investors.
It has signed partnerships with AI companies including Anthropic and OpenAI to allow its data to be used on their platforms.
It made £412mn from equities in 2025, representing 4.6 per cent of revenues, “driven by growth in trading volumes and data revenues”.
Initial public offerings on the London Stock Exchange have remained muted over the past year. The FT reported this week that Elliott had assured the UK government about its intentions for the future of the exchange, addressing worries that it might push for a break-up of the group.
LSEG reported pre-tax profits of £1.97bn in 2025, a 56 per cent increase on the year before. Revenues were £8.97bn, a 5.8 per cent rise from 2024.
