Sep 11, 2019 - Economy & Business

Hong Kong's stock exchange offers $36.6 billion to acquire London Stock Exchange

Dan Primack, author of Pro Rata

A view outside the exchange offices in Hong Kong. Photo: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing proposed on Wednesday to acquire the London Stock Exchange for around $39 billion, contingent on the LSE dropping its $27 billion purchase of financial data company Refinitiv from The Blackstone Group and Thomson Reuters.

Why it matters: Both Hong Kong and London are worried about remaining global financial centers, due to the anti-China protests and Brexit. This could either firm up their position or obliterate it.

What they're saying: LSE said in a statement that it remains committed to the Refinitiv deal.

The bottom line: Even if the LSE is willing to switch up strategies — going for more of an uber-exchange than a Bloomberg terminal rival — it's far from certain that British regulators would sign off.

Go deeper: How Brexit and Hong Kong could influence the Saudi Aramco IPO

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Axios
51 mins ago - Politics & Policy

Louisville officer: "Breonna Taylor would be alive" if we had served no-knock warrant

Breonna Taylor memorial in Louisville. Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, the Louisville officer who led the botched police raid that caused the death of Breonna Taylor, said the No. 1 thing he wishes he had done differently is either served a "no-knock" warrant or given five to 10 seconds before entering the apartment: "Breonna Taylor would be alive, 100 percent."

Driving the news: Mattingly, who spoke to ABC News and Louisville's Courier Journal for his public interview, was shot in the leg in the initial moments of the March 13 raid. Mattingly did not face any charges after Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said he and another officer were "justified" in returning fire to protect themselves against Taylor's boyfriend.

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Scott Rosenberg, Ashley Gold, Kyle Daly
1 hour ago - Technology

U.S. vs. Google — the siege begins

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

The Justice Department fired the starter pistol on what's likely to be a years-long legal siege of Big Tech by the U.S. government when it filed a major antitrust suit Tuesday against Google.

The big picture: Once a generation, it seems, federal regulators decide to take on a dominant tech company. Two decades ago, Microsoft was the target; two decades before that, IBM.

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Dion Rabouin, author of Markets
2 hours ago - Economy & Business

Why the stimulus delay isn't a crisis (yet)

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

If the impasse between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House on a new stimulus deal is supposed to be a crisis, you wouldn't know it from the stock market, where prices continue to rise.

  • That's been in no small part because U.S. economic data has held up remarkably well in recent months thanks to the $2 trillion CARES Act and Americans' unusual ability to save during the crisis.
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