Piazza Affari looks closely at the possible marriage between Intercontinental Exchange (Ice) e London Stock Exchange Group (Lse). According to the Financial Times, a possible offer by Ice could include the spin-off of the activities in our country and therefore of the Italian Stock Exchange, which in 2007 was purchased by the LSE for 1,6 billion euro.
Lse, for the moment, is working on a merger with the German Deutsche Boerse, as part of an all-equity transaction. But these days Ice has confirmed that it will soon consider the possibility of making a bid for Lse, even a decision has not yet been made.
Ice, which has not confirmed, would not be new to operations of this type: in 2012 it had bought Nyse Euronext for 11,2 billion dollars, including in the agreement indications on the subsequent listing of Euronext, owner of the Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels stock exchanges and Lisbon.
