London (Reuters) -The London Stock Exchange Group (LON: LSEG) said on Friday that it was on track to meet its cost and savings targets for integrating data company Refinitiv and that it had begun a 750 million pound ($911 million) share buyback.
Investors are keeping a close eye on the integration of Refinitiv, which LSEG bought for $27 billion in 2021. This is because there have been outages and some investors are worried about how much money is being spent to bring together two different cultures and systems.
In the company’s half-year results statement, LSEG CEO David Schwimmer said, “We are doing a good job of managing costs, and we are still making progress on synergies.”
Shares of LSEG went up 1.9% when the market opened.
Since LSEG bought Refinitiv, the 300-year-old London exchange has become a group where financial market data and analytics are bigger than all of its other business lines put together. This puts it in competition with firms like Bloomberg, which is the leader in data, and S&P Global (NYSE:SPGI).
Internal personnel changes have happened because of the integration. LSEG’s head of data, Andrea Remyn Stone, left her job in June after only a year on the job. Schwimmer took over her role temporarily.
Schwimmer said, “We are successfully carrying out our strategy. We have good momentum going into the second half, and our goals haven’t changed.“
Growth in income
The gross profit that LSEG reported was 3.231 billion pounds, which was a little bit more than what analysts expected, which was 3.229 billion pounds. It had an adjusted basic earnings per share of 167.4 pence, which was more than the 149.6 pence that analysts had expected.
It said that all divisions had strong growth in income, and pro forma total income, minus recoveries, was up 6.2% from the same time last year.
Analysts from Citi said in a note, “A small beat and a comment that costs will stay the same gives us comfort.”
The Wealth Club said that bringing Refinitiv’s old tech systems up to date will take several years.
However, if the LSE can pull off the integration, investors could get a lot out of it,” said Charlie Huggins, Head of Equities at the research firm for wealthy investors.
LSEG will pay a dividend of 31.7 pence per share, a 27 percent increase over the previous year.
The share buy-back will start right away and last for a year. It will be the first one since a smaller one in 2017.
Reuters (NYSE:TRI), which owns Reuters News, has some shares in LSEG, but not enough to control it.
1 dollar equals 0.8236 pounds