Microsoft to buy 4% of London Stock Exchange Group

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) has agreed a deal that will see the tech giant acquire a 4% stake in the London Stock Exchange Group Plc (LON: LSE).

A blog announcement Microsoft published on Monday revealed that the company will fork $2.8 billion to complete the cloud-computing deal. Microsoft will look to generate revenue of up to $5 billion from LSEG and the broader financial services sector over the 10-year period.

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According to the press release, Microsoft will buy the equity stake in LSEG by acquiring shares from the Blackstone and Thomson Reuters Consortium.

LSEG looks to grow market with 10-year deal

On its part, the London Stock Exchange is set to have at least $2.8 billion put into cloud services in its 10-year partnership with Microsoft. Through this partnership, the LSEG will tap into Microsoft’s technology to migrate the stock exchange’s markets to the cloud as well as leverage the technology to roll out new products and services.

Commenting on the deal, David Schwimmer, the CEO of London Stock Exchange Group said in a statement:

“This strategic partnership is a significant milestone on LSEG’s journey towards becoming the leading global financial markets infrastructure and data business and will transform the experience for our customers.”

London Stock Exchange shares soar

The LSEG shares soared nearly 4% early Monday morning following the news before paring the gains in later trading. The stock’s price was 2.1% up at 1:40 pm London time.

Elsewhere, Microsoft’s shares were trading near $246.75 pre-market, just under 1% up at 08:40 am ET. The MSFT shares closed at $245.42 on Friday, still more than 26% down year-to-date.