LONDON (Reuters) -The London Stock Exchange Group said on Monday it will sell its wealth management technology operations BETA+ for $1.1 billion to affiliates of Clearlake Capital Group and Motive Partners to cut the exchange’s leverage.
BETA+, which includes Maxit and Digital Investor, provides back-office processing to the wealth management industry, including securities processing and tax reporting. It had revenue of about $300 million last year, mainly linked to U.S. markets.
LSEG said it expects to hand a “significant proportion” of the net proceeds to shareholders via a buyback, which would likely start in the third quarter.
“In addition, LSEG announces that it has entered into a new long-term strategic partnership for data, content and tools with BETA+ and portfolio companies owned by Motive and Clearlake,” LSEG said in a statement.
The partnership will provide LSEG with new, recurring revenue at attractive growth rates through access to new client segments, the exchange said.
Shares in LSEG, which said leverage would be cut, were down 0.2% at 7,942 pence at 1200 GMT.
“The wealth management industry continues to demonstrate opportunities, bolstered by tailwinds across the spectrum including a significant movement in technology modernization, industry consolidation, increases in retail trading, and democratization of the capital markets,” Clearlake and Motive said in a statement.
Thomson Reuters, parent of Reuters News, holds a minority stake in LSEG, whose data and analytics arm Refinitiv pays Thomson Reuters for news it distributes.
(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
