When Clara Furse became CEO of the London Stock Exchange back in 2001, she spent a large part of her tenure fighting off takeover bids from US, Middle East and Europe, which saw the exchange’s share price head to £20 a share from £5 and back again. To the average market observer, she and her management team did not take London to the rest of the world; nor did it bring much in the way of overseas business to London apart from Italy’s Borsa Italiana, which provided modest pickings.
The Xavier Rolet 8-year dynasty between 2009-2017 saw the LSE’s business select another gear, as CEO Rolet provided the sales momentum, taking London’s premier exchange’s share price from circa £4 to circa £37. Since then, it appears that the LSE’s technology and its acquisition of Refinitiv for $27 billion in 2021 has provided the momentum for a significant bounce in its share price.
