London Stock Exchange Group interim results for the six months ended 30 September 2010

• Good financial performance reflecting diversified Group business, with an 11 per cent increase in adjusted earnings per share
• Significant progress achieved in delivering Group strategy to transform business, including roll out of new high performance trading system and a range of product initiatives including plans for trading equity derivatives on Turquoise in the second quarter of 2011

Financial Headlines:

• Total income up one percent at £318.4 million (H1 FY 2010: £314.0 million); Revenue of £297.9 million (H1 FY2010: £301.2 million), down one per cent. On an organic basis and at constant currency all segments except Capital Markets delivered increased revenues
• Operating expenses1 down eight per cent at £165.2 million (H1 FY 2010: £180.2 million)
• Adjusted operating profit1 up 15 per cent at £154.8 million (H1 FY 2010: £134.8 million)
• Profit before tax up 26 per cent at £100.2 million (H1 FY 2010: £79.4 million)
• Basic EPS up 25 per cent at 23.2 pence (H1 FY 2010: 18.5 pence) and adjusted basic EPS up eleven per cent at 32.2 pence (H1 FY 2010: 29.0 pence)
• Interim dividend of 8.8 pence per share, up five per cent (H1 FY 2010 8.4 pence per share)
• Strong net cash inflow from operating activities of £144 million; adjusted net debt down £85 million in the period to £442 million

¹ before amortisation of purchased intangibles and exceptional items

All comparisons are against the same corresponding period in the previous year unless stated otherwise

Operational Headlines:

• Roll out of Group's new MillenniumIT technology platform - Turquoise live, other cash equity markets to follow; customers experiencing world beating average latency and performance
• Number of new issues more than doubled on Group's primary markets, with £18 billion capital raised, including 19 international companies
• Share of order book trading stabilised in UK cash equities market during the period and average daily UK equity value traded up seven per cent vs H1 last year though yield declined as expected following successful pricing promotions; average daily equity trades in Italy down five per cent over the same period last year
• Trading volumes on Group's fixed income (cash) markets up 21 per cent and derivatives trading volumes on IDEM up 19 per cent
• Significant growth in non-display trading on Turquoise - average daily value traded over €200 million in second quarter during which time it was the number one European dark pool MTF
• Post Trade Services' total income up nine per cent; driven by increased clearing volumes and stronger treasury income from the central counterparty business; CCP services extended to cash collateral management previously performed by the Bank of Italy
• Strong demand for information products, particularly Reference Data, Proquote and FTSE. Expansion of the UnaVista trade matching and confirmation service well received. Real time data professional user figures stable at London Stock Exchange and Borsa Italiana
• Technology Services performed well, with launch of new data centre developments, new client connections and a number of new third party software contract wins for MillenniumIT

Commenting on performance of the Group over the period, Xavier Rolet, Chief Executive said:

"This was a good first half performance, with the uplift in earnings reflecting contributions from our increasingly diversified international exchange business.

"We have seen a significant pick up in IPO activity across our markets, with a more than doubling of the number of new issues in H1, and a continued flow of IPOs in recent weeks indicates an encouraging pipeline. Post Trade, MTS, Technology Services and our Information Services businesses also delivered increased revenues in the period.

"We continue to make real strides in transforming the Group and in particular this half we began to roll out our new, super-fast MillenniumIT trading platform. This is now live on our pan-European MTF, Turquoise, and early feedback from customers has been overwhelmingly positive. The next step will be moving the main UK cash equities market over to the Millennium Exchange platform in early 2011.

"We have made good progress in developing our equity derivatives offering, recently migrating IDEM, our Italian equity derivatives business, onto a significantly enhanced technology platform; and today we can also confirm that we will be launching equity derivatives trading on Turquoise in the second quarter 2011.

"Pursuing growth opportunities, continued delivery on cost reductions, enhancing our competitiveness, driving efficiencies and customer service will remain pivotal to the Group's strategy in the period ahead. There is still much for us to do and, although market conditions are likely to remain mixed, we nonetheless expect to make further progress in the second half of the year."

Chairman's Statement

Operational Performance

The first half of the financial year has seen good performances in many parts of the business with the diversified nature of the Group's revenues mitigating the expected revenue reductions in cash equities and UK derivatives trading operations arising from variable market conditions and competitive pressures.

Activity on the primary markets picked up with a more than doubling of the total number of new issues, including 19 international companies joining our markets in the period and a more than trebling of new companies joining AIM. The Group's role in facilitating large scale capital raising for companies over both the recent period and since the financial markets crisis has been a critical factor in helping market recovery and re-financing. Including the £18 billion raised in H1 there has been a total of £200 billion raised on our markets in the past two and a half years, equivalent to the Bank of England's total quantitative easing programme.

Trading conditions in secondary markets remained variable. Average daily value traded in the UK cash equities market of £4.9 billion represented a seven per cent increase on last year, helped by the relatively elevated trading levels in May, while in Italy the average daily number of trades fell five per cent to 249,000. Stabilisation of our share of cash equities order book trading in the UK was a notable achievement with average share since the start of the period at 62.8 per cent: in Italy share of electronic value traded averaged 84 per cent. In total, revenues from equities trading declined 17 per cent, mainly reflecting pricing promotions which have been successful in rewarding greater trading on our markets though as expected have led to a reduction in yield. Our Turquoise MTF made good progress in H1, averaging 3.5 per cent share of European order book trading and in particular made good gains in non display trading, becoming the market leading MTF dark pool service from June to September.

The new equities trading platform provided by MillenniumIT, our software development business, was successfully launched on Turquoise in October, with trading speeds already proven to deliver world beating average latency and performance. We expect the new platform to be instrumental in growing the Turquoise business as clients fully connect to the new system and new clients take advantage of the high performance technology.

The Group's derivatives trading revenues declined 20 per cent, with a reduction in yields and the absence of trading of Scandinavian derivatives trading at EDX compared to last year outweighing the 19 per cent increase in contracts traded on IDEM. The fixed income business performed well with a six per cent increase in revenue reflecting a rise of trading in both the MTS cash and repo markets and good market recovery following dislocation due to European debt concerns in our first quarter. Overall revenues for the Group's Capital Markets segment, which includes both primary and secondary market activities, declined 10 per cent to £136.9 million reflecting the lower performances in cash equities and derivatives trading.

In Post Trade Services, total income grew nine per cent to £65.0 million, up 13 per cent at constant currency. Contracts cleared rose six per cent, contributing to an increase in clearing revenues of five per cent. In addition, treasury income through the Central Counterparty business increased by over 70 per cent to £16.7 million as a result of higher margins held and active treasury management by the clearing business. Decreases in settlement instructions followed a reduction in OTC volumes, resulting in an 18 per cent decline in revenue in the Settlement business. In the Custody operations the value of assets under management increased six per cent while revenues reduced slightly reflecting lower activity in the shareholder services business.

The Information Services division delivered a two per cent increase in revenue to £87.4 million, with gains in non real time information products helping to offset declines in revenue from distribution of real time data. In particular, good performance from the FTSE indices business, Sedol, Proquote and UnaVista, as well as the inclusion of Turquoise in this division, contributed to a 21 per cent rise in revenue from other Information products. Professional terminals receiving the Group's real time data at 30 September 2010 were overall little changed over the same date last year, at 93,000 for LSE and 140,000 for Borsa Italiana, with a reduction in revenues due to the higher average number of professional users in the corresponding half year period.

The Group's Technology Services businesses contributed £24.5 million to Group revenues, including £9.0 million from MillenniumIT, acquired in October last year. MillenniumIT has performed well, with the principal focus of activity on developing technology for the Group though it has also won contracts to supply market surveillance systems to the Egyptian Exchange and trading systems to Tullett Prebon, amongst others, in the period. The Technology Services division also benefited from increased revenues from the server co-location service which was launched last year.

Leveraging Group Assets

Actions to develop the Group have continued, consistent with our strategy to improve operational efficiencies and leverage the Group's assets, with a number of product developments and new launches during the period. Importantly, and as already highlighted, the first successful stage of the programme to roll out the new, high performance MillenniumIT trading system has been completed with its introduction at Turquoise. This is a critical achievement and represents a fast development and testing process in less than a year since acquiring MillenniumIT. A further four migrations will take place over approximately the next 18 months, after which the legacy equities trading system will be retired and replacements for other Group systems can be implemented using MillenniumIT technology. We remain on track to deliver at least £10 million per annum of further cost savings from FY 2012. Migration to the SOLA derivatives platform has also recently taken place at IDEM, with clients of our Italian derivatives operation now benefitting from the performance improvements this brings.

On 2 November we announced that the Turquoise platform was the subject of a two hour outage. This was an isolated incident and although a thorough investigation is ongoing it is clear that it was unconnected to the functioning of the trading platform itself. Plans for roll out of the new system continue and we are working with customers on a date for migration of the UK main market, likely to be early calendar 2011.

Significant project work is taking place to extend derivatives trading. We plan to launch trading of pan-European equity derivatives, starting with FTSE futures, through the Turquoise MTF platform. This new service will combine the advantages of the Turquoise MTF model with the London Stock Exchange infrastructure, linking price formation in equity derivatives and underlying equities in a unique low latency environment. Connections and membership will be straightforward, with clients able to use existing networks and trading connections to Turquoise, the Group's existing derivatives trading platforms and clearing links to LCH. The service is expected to commence in the second quarter of 2011, subject to regulatory approvals.

A number of other initiatives have also been announced or launched:

• improved services for the retail market, including new pricing incentives for equities trading and lower cost real time data, and a greater number of bonds on the retail order book
• an expansion of the range of ETFs and ETNs which are tradable on our markets
• the acquisition of Pro Mac S.p.A. in Italy, a market dedicated to Italian small and mid-cap companies, for a net cash consideration of £0.5 million
• the acquisition of a further 67 per cent of shares in MTS France SA for a consideration broadly equal to the cash acquired, enabling MTS to enhance economies of scale in its European operations
• within real time data the launch of a new post-trade price and trading information service, providing users further choice with a new separate data feed at low cost and facilitating greater transparency of such data and ease of consolidation by market data distributors
• extension of the UnaVista service with the launch of two new services, the Confirmation Portal and the Swaps Portal, both of which help brokers and their clients automate manual trade processes to reduce post trade costs and risk
• enhancement of the server co-location service by creating space for non-trading clients and also offering a low latency order routing service to co-location clients, providing access to all major European and US execution venues

Financial Summary

Unless otherwise stated, all figures below refer to the six months ended 30 September 2010. Comparative figures are for the six months ended 30 September 2009 ("H1 FY 2010"). Variance is also provided at constant currency. The basis of preparation is set out at the end of this report.

* before amortisation of purchased intangibles and exceptional items

As explained when releasing our Preliminary results in May 2010, segmentation of revenues this year is made on the basis of the way the businesses are managed and reported internally as required by IFRS 8, primarily resulting in Technology Services now being disclosed as a new segment separate from Information Services.

Performance in the first six months of the financial year reflects mixed market conditions across the Group’s businesses, with reductions in the Capital Markets segment offset by gains in other segments. Total revenue of £297.9 million declined one per cent on the comparable period (H1 FY2010: £301.2 million) though as a result of increased net treasury income from treasury management actions at the CCP business, total income rose one per cent to £318.4 million (H1 FY2010: £314.0 million), up three per cent in constant currency. On an organic basis and at constant currency all segments except Capital Markets delivered increased revenues.

Operating expenses, before amortisation of purchased intangibles and exceptional items, decreased eight per cent to £165.2 million (H1 FY 2010: £180.2 million). Operating expenses reflect savings of £18 million from previously announced headcount and property restructuring and other cost savings, including a £5.6 million non recurring benefit arising from an agreement with HMRC over the methodology used in recovering input VAT. This will provide an ongoing benefit of c£1 million per annum. These savings are offset by £19 million incremental costs from the acquisitions of Turquoise and MillenniumIT. Also included in operating expenses in the current period is £4.1 million of non-recurring accelerated depreciation and other IT costs relating to the TradElect platform, which is in the process of being replaced, and which compares to £20.4 million of equivalent costs in the corresponding period last year.

Adjusted operating profit for the period, before amortisation of purchased intangibles and exceptional items, increased 15 per cent to £154.8 million (H1 FY 2010: £134.8 million).In constant currency, adjusted operating profit increased 17 per cent.

Exceptional items of £4.9 million principally relate to an impairment provision on a freehold property, plus headcount restructuring costs in the period. At 30 September 2010, headcount excluding MillenniumIT fell to 951, down from 1,027 at year end. Headcount at MillenniumIT increased from 461 to 542 to support the large number of both internal and external software development projects taking place in the business.

Net finance costs were £22.7 million, up from £18.8 million in H1 last year, mostly due to increased costs on long term borrowings following the issue of a 10 year, £250 million bond last year. The underlying effective Group tax rate increased to 33 per cent (H1 FY 2010: 31.5 per cent), compared with the standard UK tax rate of 28 per cent, reflecting lower benefit from the close out of prior year UK returns than last year and an increase in the underlying effective tax rate in Italy due to the relative rate profit mix between our businesses.

Basic earnings per share were 23.2 pence, an increase of 25 per cent (H1 FY 2010: 18.5 pence). Adjusted basic earnings per share increased 11 per cent to 32.2 pence (H1 FY 2010: 29.0 pence).

Net cash inflow from operating activities was £143.8 million (H1 FY 2010: £106.8 million). Capital expenditure in the period amounted to £18.0 million, and full year spend is expected to be approaching £55-60 million reflecting investment taking place in the business, including the implementation of the new equities and derivatives trading systems and initiatives to expand other services such as derivatives trading on Turquoise (full year spend FY 2010: £42.2 million). Net cash generated after dividends was £78.4 million (H1 FY 2009: £36.9 million).

At 30 September 2010 adjusted net debt was £442 million (after setting aside £125 million of cash for regulatory and operational purposes) while drawn borrowings, which have been reduced from free cash during the period, totalled £500 million (31 March 2010: £607 million). We are currently in discussions with the FSA over a proposal by them to amend the basis on which the regulatory capital is calculated within our main UK operating company. Initial indications are that overall capital requirements will increase by no more than one third above the current £125 million. The Group has taken the opportunity to refinance £225m of its bank lines early by signing a new £250 million, five year revolving credit facility. Committed credit lines available for general group purposes now total £1 billion, with £750 million extending to 2015 or beyond, providing comfortable headroom in the medium term.

The Group has net assets of £1,021.5 million at 30 September 2009 (31 March 2010: £1,030.8 million). The central counterparty clearing business assets and liabilities within CC&G largely offset each other and are shown gross on the balance sheet as the amounts receivable and payable are with different counterparties. The gross clearing balances increased during the period principally as a result of an increase in the average terms of the repurchase transactions that remained open, together with and increase in the volatility of their nominal values, compared to prior reporting dates.

Board of Directors

A number of changes to the Board have taken place during the first half of the financial year. Gay Huey Evans and Paul Heiden joined the Board in June, replacing Oscar Fanjul and Nigel Stapleton who stepped down at the AGM, both having served on the Board since 2001. At the end of September Angelo Tantazzi left the Group Board having joined at the time of the merger with Borsa Italiana in 2007, although he will remain on the Board of Borsa Italiana until next year, and his role as Deputy Chairman was taken on by Paolo Scaroni, already a Non-Executive Director on the Board. Also, in September, Massimo Tononi joined the Board as an independent Non-Executive Director. We warmly welcome the new Board members, who bring extensive international experience and expertise, and are grateful for the contributions made by the departing Board members.

Interim Dividend

The Directors have declared an interim dividend of 8.8 pence per share, an increase of five per cent on the interim dividend paid last year, which reflects improvement in the Group’s results while retaining cash to finance planned growth initiatives and other opportunities.

The interim dividend will be paid on 5 January 2011 to shareholders on the register on 3 December 2010.

Current Trading and Outlook

During October daily average equity value traded in London increased seven per cent compared with September and average daily equity volumes were unchanged in Italy, while for November to date trading on both markets is up seven and fifteen per cent respectively on October levels. In the primary markets, the pipeline for IPOs is promising with some notable new listings in recent weeks, although timing of capital raising, as ever, is to an extent uncertain and dependent on market conditions. In the Post Trade division, any increase in trading volumes will help business levels, and active treasury management should mean treasury income remains good. The number of professional users of the Group’s real time data remains broadly stable at present and demand for other Information products is expected to remain robust.

Actions to grow the Group and to drive our competitiveness and efficiency will continue to be a priority in the period ahead. Although market conditions are likely to remain mixed, we nonetheless expect delivery of further initiatives and to make further progress in the second half of the year.

Chris Gibson-Smith

Chairman

18 November 2010

Operating Performance – Key statistics

To assist investors in understanding the underlying performance of the Group, percentage changes are also presented on a constant currency basis.

Capital Markets

Capital Markets comprises the Group's primary markets activities, providing access to capital for corporates and others, and the secondary market trading of cash equities, derivatives and fixed income.

Contacts

Media
Victoria Brough
LSEG
+44  (0)207 797 1222

Investor Relations
Paul Froud 
LSEG
+44  (0)207 797 3322

Citigate Dewe Rogerson
Patrick Donovan/Grant Ringshaw
+44 (0) 20 7638 9571