LSE announces £750m share buyback as H1 profits rise

London Stock Exchange announced the launch of a £750m share buyback on Friday as it posted a jump in first-half profit and lifted its dividend.

Pre-tax profit rose to £803m from £463m in the first half of 2021. LSE hailed "strong progress" across all divisions during the half, with momentum continuing into the second half.

The company lifted its interim dividend by 27% to 31.7p a share and said it was continuing to deliver on revenue and cost synergies and all of its targets are unchanged.

Chief executive David Schwimmer said: "LSEG has delivered a strong first half performance with continued revenue growth across our businesses. We are managing costs well and we continue to make progress on achievement of synergies.

"We provide solutions solving critical issues for our customers, with a high proportion of recurring subscription revenues and structurally growing transactional revenues that benefit from volatility.

"Our cash generation is allowing us to actively deploy capital across organic and inorganic investments, grow our dividend and commence a share buy-back programme, driving further value for our shareholders. We are successfully executing on our strategy, have good momentum going into the second half and our targets remain unchanged."

The group also announced a £750m share buyback to be carried out over 12 months, with the first tranche to commence immediately. The buyback is being funded mainly through proceeds from the sale of the BETA business, which completed on 1 July.