Xavier Rolet, the new chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, was suggesting last week the company could be on the acquistion trail, which inevitably led to a new round of speculation.
This has intensifed on this week's news that the LSE had hired Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley as advisors on mergers and acquisitions. Today's talk revolved around the LSE possibly buying Turquoise, the rival trading platform set up by a bunch of banks (BNP Paribas, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Société Générale and UBS, to be precise).
The LSE is said to have a war chest of around £300m for deals. Traders were said it would difficult to put a value on Turquoise, although this of course does not rule out a deal. The LSE, steady at 856p, has also been linked Indian and Polish exchanges, as well as a European clearing house.
All this comes just a few days after word went round the City that the LSE itself might be a takeover target, with Deutsche Börse said to be looking at a renewed bid for the exchange.
