The London Stock Exchange Group has posted overall organic growth of 7.8% in H1, with its markets division up 11.7% year-on-year.
David Schwimmer
The markets offering provides secondary market trading for equities, fixed income, interest rate derivatives, foreign exchange (FX) and other asset classes, as well as clearing, risk management, capital optimisation and regulatory reporting solutions.
Equities revenue reached £205 million, a 4.4% increase, which the group put down to “robust volumes” in LSE Cash Equity, ETPs and Turquoise, in addition to growth in the Markets Data and Stock Exchange Daily Official List (SEDOL) businesses.
Within equities, the group’s Digital Markets Infrastructure platform has gone live, having been built in collaboration with Microsoft. LSEG confirmed that its first customers are due to be onboarded later in 2025.
Elsewhere, the group’s FX revenue reached £139 million, increasing 13.1%, with both dealer-to-client platform FXall, and dealer-to-dealer platform FX Matching posting a strong first half year thanks to market volatility.
Higher clearing volumes also saw the OTC derivatives revenue increase to £314 million, up 14.4%, driven by activity across SwapClear and ForexClear.
In addition, LSEG posted strong results in fixed income, derivatives ‘and other revenue’, which was primarily comprised of Tradeweb, confirmed the group. A 17.9% year-on-year increase saw revenues of £777 million, with average daily volume across all asset classes at $2.6 trillion.
This is up 19% from H1 2024, “excluding the impact of the ICD acquisition, representing strong market activity across Tradeweb’s asset classes.”
David Schwimmer, chief executive, highlighted that the group had improved margins in the face of market volatility.
“We have continued our strong and consistent growth track record, with a good performance from our subscription businesses enhanced by our leading markets platforms, which drove upside from increased volatility in the period. At the same time, we have improved our margins strongly as we realise the benefits of our ongoing transformation and deliver attractive operating leverage.
“We have built a business which is strategically aligned to a number of powerful growth drivers: the long-term growth in demand for data to feed and drive the modern economy, including for AI models, the digitisation of financial markets and the increasing demands of regulatory, financial and reputational risk management.”
The group further confirmed that in its post-trade business the focus is on entering new markets and asset classes, with 30 new customers now signed up across the product suite.
Read more: LSEG overall revenue up following strong performance in capital markets division
LSEG’s other divisions have also performed well, with Data & Analytics up 5.1% in H1, and Risk Intelligence increasing 12.2%.
LSEG’s positive showing was in part put down to their partnerships over the last year. As Schwimmer explained: “We continue to make significant investments in product innovation for our customers, to generate growth over the long term. The first half was marked by a consistent cadence of new product launches, which we expect to continue in H2.”