CMA provisionally clears LSE's acquisition of Quantile

The Competition and Markets Authority said on Friday that it has provisionally cleared the London Stock Exchange’s acquisition of technology firm Quantile Group.

The watchdog said the deal - announced in December 2021 - is not be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition in the supply of multilateral compression of over-the-counter interest rate derivatives in the UK as a result of input foreclosure.

However, this is not the CMA’s final decision, and it has invited any interested parties to make submissions on its provisional findings by Friday 30 September.

The London Stock Exchange Group agreed to buy Quantile last year for up to £274m. Quantile provides portfolio, margin and capital optimisation and compression services for the global financial services market.

The LSE said at the time that the deal would enable it to expand its range of post trade risk management solutions to its customers through trade compression, capital and margin optimisation services.