Sell the London Stock Exchange? OK, but not to the Germans

The London Stock Exchange is no longer the red-hot crucible it once was, given the multifarious ways by which shares, bonds and derivatives now change hands.

But the prospect of the LSE passing into the control of Deutsche Börse — in what was announced as a ‘merger of equals’, but with the Germans holding the larger stake and the top job — is a mighty provocation to Brexit campaigners.

The Express claims it would reduce the London market ‘to an insignificant regional afterthought’. Brexit or not, there’s logic to a pan-European trading platform with shared technologies and harmonised listing rules: but who can doubt that the German agenda must be to hoover as much business as possible from London to Frankfurt?

So if the LSE is to lose independence, as has long been on the cards, let’s pray for a counterbidder — either Atlanta-based ICE (which owns the New York Stock Exchange) or the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.