London Stock Exchange

There is a rich history behind the London Stock Exchange. Founded in 1801 in London’s Sweeting’s Alley, the Exchange moved to Capel Court within its first year of trading. By 1972, the London Stock Exchange moved to a building that was built for the specific purpose of the LSE in Threadneedle Street – with it’s own dedicated trading floor.

When 1986 came around, the Big Bang arrived and saw the deregulation of the UK financial sector. External ownership of member firms was allowed, and by 1995, the AIM (Alternative Investment Market) launched. In 2004, the London Stock Exchange moved once again to Paternoster Square.

Two years later, NASDAQ built up a stake of 23% in the Exchange and has since sold its portion since then. Borsa Italiana was acquired in 2007, and it was bought for £1.1bn. Once this was purchased, the London Stock Exchange Group PLC was born. The original intent here was to enable the London Stock Exchange to diversify the customer base and the products on offer.

This deal led to the dilution of the stakes held by existing London Stock Exchange shareholders, and the new Borsana Italiana shareholders received 28% of the enlarged register. By the time 2009 was in its final quarter, the London Stock Exchange Group bought out Millennium Information Technologies LTD for £18m. This is a software company based in Sri Lanka that specialised in trading systems.

In June 2014, the London Stock Exchange joined the United Nations’ Sustainable Stock Exchanges and was the 10th Exchange to do so.

The leading indices that track the London Stock Exchange Performance come from the FTSE.

The London Stock Exchange provides two different equity markets, and the main one is the one that holds the FTSE 100 list; then there is the FTSE 250, which is the second largest, and then the FTSE Small Cap index, which hosts smaller companies. These are the three main indexes that are making up the FTSE Share-All index. There are more than 900 companies listed across these three, and the value of the UK’s public companies is covered by 99%.

The FTSE 100 list is made up of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange that have the highest market capitalisation, and it is the most influential index in the UK. All of the FTSE indexes are managed by the FTSE Group, which remains as a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange.