The London Stock Exchange logged solid results and ramped up its shareholder dividend Friday amid worries over the likely collapse of its merger with Deutsche Boerse. The results were published just days after it emerged that LSE's blockbuster tie-up with the German giant was on the brink of failure. Operating profit grew five percent to £427 million ($524 million, 500 million euros) in 2016 from the previous year, the group said in a results statement. Revenues jumped 14.4 percent to £1.515 billion.
Net profit or earnings after taxation more than halved to £152 million due to a sizeable loss on the disposal of its Russell Investment Management division. However, the LSE hiked its annual shareholder dividend by a fifth to 43.2 pence per share in a move it said reflected the "strong outlook" for the business. The LSE stunned markets last Sunday when it revealed that it would not meet a key EU antitrust demand to gain clearance for the Deutsche Boerse merger.
In a shock announcement, the LSE had said it was "highly unlikely" it would meet the European Commission's recent request to divest its majority stake in MTS, which is a trading platform for government bonds in Italy. "The Commission's very recent request for the group to divest MTS, a systemically important regulated business that sits at the heart of our Italian operations, put us indeed in a very difficult situation," said Chief Executive Xavier Rolet on Friday.