London Stock Exchange Group has agreed to sell its entire shareholding in its Milan, Italy-based stock exchange to Euronext in a €4.3 billion ($5 billion) deal.
The agreement follows a September announcement by LSEG that it had entered into exclusive discussions with European stock exchange Euronext over the sale of Borsa Italiana.
LSEG began exploring the potential of selling Borsa Italiana in July, following an antitrust review by the European Commission into its planned acquisition of data and analytics business Refinitiv. The deal with Euronext is conditional upon a clearance decision of the Refinitiv transaction, a news release by LSEG said.
"While the EC's review of the Refinitiv transaction is still ongoing, it is LSEG's expectation that a divestment of Borsa Italiana or a material part thereof ... will be a condition to any EC clearance for the Refinitiv Transaction," the release said.
"We continue to make good progress on the highly attractive Refinitiv transaction and we are pleased to have reached this important milestone," David Schwimmer, CEO at LSEG, said in the release.
"We believe the sale of the Borsa Italiana group will contribute significantly to addressing the EU's competition concerns. The Borsa Italiana group has played an important part in LSEG's history," he said. "We are confident that it will continue to develop successfully and contribute to the Italian economy and to European capital markets under Euronext's ownership."
The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2021.
