Microsoft to buy 4% stake in London Stock Exchange

Microsoft is to take a 4 per cent equity stake in London Stock Exchange Group as part of a 10-year commercial deal to migrate the exchange operator’s data platform into the cloud, the British company said on Monday.

It is the latest sign of deepening ties between financial services providers and a handful of big global cloud companies such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and IBM, which have prompted regulators to scrutinise the ties more closely.

Microsoft has longstanding links with LSEG, but the exchange group’s Chief Executive David Schwimmer said that about a year ago they began talks on closer ties.

“It’s a long term partnership. In terms of the products we will be building together, I would expect our customers to start to see the benefits of that 18 to 24 months out and we will continue building from there,” Schwimmer told Reuters.

Regulators have expressed concern about the over-reliance of financial firms on too few cloud providers, given the disruption this could cause across the sector if a provider went down.

The European Union has just approved a law introducing safeguards on cloud providers in financial services, with Britain set to follow suit. “You should assume we do not like to surprise our regulators,” Schwimmer said, when asked if LSEG has ensured that regulators were on board. LSEG said the link with Microsoft was a partnership to reap the benefits of “consumption-based pricing”, and not a traditional cloud deal.

“We will continue to maintain our multi-cloud strategy and working with other cloud providers,” Schwimmer said.