LSEG Divests BETA+; Proceeds To Go Toward Share Buybacks; Another Positive Signal After Strong 2021

Wide-moat London Stock Exchange Group, or LSEG, announced the divestment of BETA+, its securities processing and tax reporting business within its wealth solutions segment, to Clearlake Capital and Motive Partners. In return for BETA+, LSEG will receive a total cash consideration of $1,100 million and will retain a long-term partnership with BETA+ under its new ownership. As LSEG already sits within its leverage target of enterprise value/adjusted EBITDA between 1 and 2 times, a large portion of the proceeds will be designated for share buybacks expected to commence in the third quarter this year. At current prices, the total proceeds from the transaction represent about 1.8% of LSEG’s market cap. We maintain our GBX 9,800 per-share fair value estimate.