London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) Share Price, Buyback Surge and 2026 Forecasts

London Stock Exchange Group plc (LON:LSEG) is quietly doing something very un-British: it’s shouting “we think we’re cheap” by throwing billions at its own shares.

As of the close on 2 December 2025, LSEG stock is trading around 8,820–8,824p (roughly £88 per share), up about 0.25% on the day and recovering slightly from Monday’s drop. ^[1] The share price sits well below its 52‑week high of £121.85, and only a few percent above its 52‑week low near £80.94, leaving the stock down roughly 22% over the last year, even though the underlying business is still growing. ^[2]

Meanwhile, analysts are lining up with upbeat target prices, and the company is in the middle of a multi‑billion‑pound buyback while rolling out new AI and blockchain platforms. So what exactly is going on with LSEG stock as of 2 December 2025?

LSEG share price on 2 December 2025: down but not out

Data from Hargreaves Lansdown shows LSEG shares closing on 2 December with a bid–offer spread of 8,820p / 8,824p, up 22p on the day (+0.25%). ^[3] That small bounce followed a weaker Monday session, when the stock closed at £87.94, down 1.28%, and underperformed the FTSE 100, which slipped just 0.18%. ^[4]

Over a longer horizon:

1‑month performance: about –7%
1‑year performance: roughly –22%, versus about +16% for the broader UK market and roughly –8% for the UK capital‑markets peer group. ^[5]
5‑year performance: basically flat on price (under 1% up), despite strong growth in revenue and earnings. ^[6]

Volatility is relatively tame: Simply Wall St estimates LSEG’s beta at 0.47 and its typical weekly price move around 4%, suggesting the stock is less jumpy than the average UK equity but not completely sleepy. ^[7]

So you’ve got a high‑quality, systemically important market‑infrastructure group, with a structurally growing data business, whose shares have gone sideways to down for a year. That’s exactly the sort of setup that attracts buybacks and bullish analyst notes.

The £2.5 billion buyback machine

The big near‑term story for LSEG investors is capital return.

From the company’s own trading update and later announcements:

LSEG completed a £500m buyback in H1 2025. ^[8]
It then launched a £1bn programme on 31 July 2025, and by 22 October had already repurchased £938m, buying 10.5m shares at an average price of £88.95. ^[9]
On 23 October 2025, alongside its Q3 results, LSEG announced an additional £1bn buyback, aiming to complete by February 2026, taking total buybacks to £2.5bn over the 12 months from March 2025 to February 2026. ^[10]

That October announcement was followed on 4 November 2025 by a formal share buyback programme RNS: up to £1bn of shares to be repurchased via Citigroup Global Markets, starting immediately and running no later than 25 February 2026. ^[11]

Since then, LSEG has effectively become a daily presence in the RNS feed via “Transaction in Own Shares” notices. The freshest one matters for today’s snapshot:

An RNS (reported via Mondo Visione) dated 2 December 2025 confirms that on 1 December LSEG bought 179,694 shares at prices between 8,768p and 8,898p, with a volume‑weighted average price of 8,815.61p.
After cancelling these shares, LSEG reports 513,418,812 shares in issue (excluding treasury) and 24,051,599 shares held in treasury, giving total voting rights of 513,418,812. ^[12]

Just a day earlier, an RNS covering 28 November disclosed the buyback of 137,694 shares at an average 8,908.59p, reducing shares in issue (excluding treasury) to 513,598,506 at that point. ^[13]

A separate Total Voting Rights announcement on 1 December shows overall share capital of 537,650,105 shares, made up of those 513.6m shares in circulation plus the 24.05m in treasury. ^[14]

Net effect: as of 2 December 2025, the share count continues to edge down, and the company itself is a sizable, price‑sensitive buyer in roughly the same price band where the stock is currently trading.

Q3 2025: solid growth, higher margins, louder buyback

Underneath the buyback, there’s an actual business, and it’s not doing badly.

In its Q3 2025 trading update, LSEG reported: ^[15]

Total income (ex‑recoveries) up 6.4% on an organic, constant‑currency basis (7.3% year‑to‑date).
Risk Intelligence up 13.9%, driven by strong demand for screening and identity‑verification tools.
FTSE Russell up 9.3%, helped by higher asset‑based fees as assets linked to FTSE indexes grew.
Data & Analytics up 4.9%, and Markets up 6.3%, supported by robust trading volumes.
Subscription‑driven revenue grew about 6.5%, with annual subscription value (ASV) at +5.6%, and management guiding to a visible re‑acceleration into Q4.

Crucially, management raised its 2025 EBITDA‑margin guidance to around +100 bps year‑on‑year at constant currency, at the top of its prior range, and suggested further uplift from a restructuring of its SwapClear revenue‑share agreement. ^[16]

This cocktail – mid‑single‑digit organic growth, higher margins, and a beefed‑up buyback – went down very well with the market. Reuters reported that shares jumped about 8–9% on the day when the Q3 numbers and the new £1bn buyback were announced, even though the stock remained down more than 15% for the year at that point. ^[17]

Selling 20% of Post Trade Solutions, grabbing more of SwapClear

The other big structural move announced around Q3 was in LSEG’s post‑trade business.

In October, LSEG agreed to sell a 20% stake in its Post Trade Solutions (PTS) unit to a group of 11 global banks – including major SwapClear participants – for £170m, valuing the unit at roughly £850m. ^[18]

Key details:

PTS provides risk management and optimisation for the uncleared derivatives market, including platforms like Acadia, Quantile, SwapAgent and TradeAgent, and generated about £96m of revenue last year. ^[19]
The banks will nominate three directors to the PTS board, tightening strategic alignment between LSEG and its largest post‑trade clients. ^[20]
As part of the same deal, LSEG is paying £1.15bn in total to restructure revenue sharing on SwapClear, cutting the banks’ share of surplus income from ~30% to 15% in 2025, and then 10% from 2026, while LSEG’s share rises to 90% through 2045. ^[21]

Management frames this as a classic “give a little now, take more later” structure: some cash paid up front, plus modest dilution via the PTS stake sale, in exchange for higher structural economics on one of its crown‑jewel clearing franchises. The Q3 trading statement describes the transaction as immediately accretive to EBITDA margin and adjusted EPS. ^[22]

Blockchain, tokenisation and digital markets: the DMI project

LSEG is also pushing into blockchain‑based market infrastructure – cautiously but with real money attached.

In September 2025, LSEG launched its Digital Markets Infrastructure (DMI) platform for private funds, built with Microsoft on Azure and designed to support the full asset lifecycle: issuance, tokenisation, trading, settlement and servicing. ^[23]
The first clients onboarded include MembersCap and Archax, with the initial live transaction involving a MembersCap reinsurance fund and a “major web3 foundation” as the end investor. ^[24]
Reporting from Financial News says LSEG has committed around £100m to DMI and lined up roughly 30 large institutions to engage with the platform, viewing it as a long‑term bet on tokenisation rather than a quick fee grab. ^[25]

For now, DMI is targeted at private markets, not the main equity exchange, which is sensible: private funds are structurally clunky, paperwork‑heavy beasts that are begging for automation.

The risk, of course, is that blockchain projects across the industry have had a mixed history – ASX’s failed clearing‑system revamp being the canonical cautionary tale. LSEG is betting that its scale, regulatory credibility and Microsoft partnership will keep DMI out of the graveyard of over‑hyped ledger projects. ^[26]

LSEG’s AI push: from news analytics to predictive tools

If you only think of LSEG as “the London Stock Exchange”, you’re missing the main show. The group is increasingly a data and analytics platform with some exchanges attached, and that naturally drags it into AI.

Three strands stand out:

AI‑driven data & workflow with Microsoft
LSEG’s Q3 update emphasised the deepening of its 10‑year strategic partnership with Microsoft: LSEG data is being wired directly into Microsoft 365 Copilot, various agentic‑AI tools, and a new Azure‑based trade‑routing network connecting over 1,600 firms. ^[27]
News sentiment as a macro indicator
A November 2025 LSEG research note showcased how machine‑readable news sentiment can be used to flag potential market downturns, using changes in aggregated news sentiment as an early‑warning signal ahead of bear markets. ^[28] This is more about selling powerful data feeds than about making macro calls, but it reinforces LSEG’s narrative as an AI‑ready data utility.
LG AI Research partnership: four‑week equity forecasts
In November, LG AI Research and LSEG launched an AI‑powered equity‑forecast service that tries to predict four‑week returns for thousands of US‑listed stocks, combining LSEG data with LG’s EXAONE‑BI multi‑agent deep‑learning model. The tool serves institutional clients with both numeric scores and explanatory text. ^[29] Coverage of the launch also notes the missing bits: the lack of disclosed out‑of‑sample performance metrics, and questions about how the system deals with trading frictions, especially in nano‑caps. ^[30] That’s exactly the kind of healthy skepticism one should want around AI‑driven finance.

All of this feeds into CEO David Schwimmer’s public line that AI is more likely to increase demand for LSEG’s curated, licensed data than to destroy its moat. In the Q3 call, he explicitly pushed back on the idea that generic AI models can simply hoover up public data and replace LSEG, arguing that much of its data is non‑replicable and contractually controlled. ^[31]

Analyst sentiment: bullish targets and “strong buy” labels

For better or worse, LSEG is currently an analyst darling.

On 12 November 2025, LSEG’s own investor‑relations page summarised consensus as: ^[32]

17 Buy, 1 Hold, 0 Sell ratings
Consensus target price: 12,244p
Closing share price that day: 9,186p

External aggregators paint a similar picture:

Investing.com shows an overall “Strong Buy” consensus, with 15 Buy, 0 Hold, 0 Sell among tracked analysts. ^[33]
TradingView reports an average 12‑month target of about 12,396p, with estimates ranging from 10,800p to 13,790p. ^[34]
TipRanks gives an average target around 12,810p (high 13,790p, low 11,000p), implying upside of roughly 45% from recent prices. ^[35]
MarketBeat cites a consensus target of £126.17 (12,617p), with a high of £135 and a low of £105, implying about 43% upside versus a current price just under 8,900p. ^[36]
Value‑oriented site valueinvesting.io pegs the average target at about 12,702p, based on 23 analyst models, also framing LSEG as a “Buy” with mid‑40s percent upside. ^[37]

Individual brokers have been tweaking numbers rather than ripping up their models:

KBW raised its target from £115 to £119 in late October, keeping an Outperform rating. ^[38]
UBS lifted its target to £110, maintaining a Buy despite explicitly flagging AI‑driven competition in market data as a risk factor. ^[39]
Recent Yahoo Finance coverage references consensus targets around £123, but with only small incremental adjustments over recent months. ^[40]

Take the exact numbers with a small fistful of salt – different providers are sampling different analyst sets at slightly different times. The broad picture, though, is clear: near‑unanimous Buy / Strong Buy, and average price targets 40–45% above where the shares sit today.

That doesn’t mean those targets will be hit. It does mean that, if you are the sort of investor who cares what the Street thinks, LSEG is solidly on the “favourite” side of the ledger right now.

Valuation snapshot: quality at a price

On fundamentals, LSEG looks like a growth‑at‑a‑reasonable‑price data utility, not a cheap value stock and not an income machine.

According to Simply Wall St and other data providers: ^[41]

Market cap: around £45bn
Trailing 12‑month revenue: roughly £9.1bn
Trailing earnings: about £0.99bn, giving a net margin near 11%
Trailing P/E: mid‑40s (about 45–47x), P/S around 4.9x
Dividend yield: roughly 1.5%, with a payout ratio around 73%

On shareholder‑return metrics, Simply Wall St estimates: ^[42]

1‑year total price return:–22.1%
Versus –7.8% for the UK capital‑markets industry
Versus +15.9% for the wider UK market

That combination – premium multiple, underperforming share price, and strong cash generation – is exactly why management is leaning on buybacks so heavily. If you believe LSEG’s earnings and cash flows will keep compounding as its data, index and post‑trade businesses scale, the logic of retiring shares at mid‑£80s prices while analysts point to £120+ targets is straightforward. If you think AI‑driven disruption and competition will bite harder than expected, that premium multiple looks more fragile.

Governance, London listings and the “UK discount” backdrop

There’s also a bigger London‑market narrative swirling in the background.

Recent Financial Times coverage quotes LSE CEO Dame Julia Hoggett arguing that UK boards are becoming more assertive on CEO pay to stay globally competitive, against a backdrop of subdued IPO activity in London and pressure from US markets. The piece notes that UK packages still lag US peers, and highlights investor pushback on proposals to raise LSEG CEO David Schwimmer’s pay. ^[43]

At the same time, the UK government has been tinkering with things like stamp‑duty relief on share trading to try to revitalise London’s listing appeal. LSEG sits right at the intersection of these debates: it’s both the owner of the main UK equity market and a listed company that has to live with the “UK valuation discount” itself.

Near‑term catalysts and what to watch next

For anyone tracking LSEG stock around 2 December 2025, a few obvious signposts matter over the next few months:

Daily buyback RNS cadence
Investors will keep monitoring how fast LSEG is buying, at what prices, and how quickly the share count falls. The pattern across November and into December is clear: almost daily “Transaction in Own Shares” announcements, typically in the mid‑£80s to high‑£80s, with all repurchased shares earmarked for cancellation. ^[44]
FTSE UK Index review (December 2025)
FTSE Russell, an LSEG business, has published indicative changes for the December UK index rebalance, noting that final membership decisions will be based on closing data from 2 December and confirmed after market close on 3 December. ^[45] This is more relevant to LSEG’s index‑fee business than to its own inclusion (LSEG is a core FTSE 100 name), but index flows always matter at the margin.
2025 preliminary results and updated guidance
Commentary around the Q3 update and buyback refers to a plan to complete roughly half of the new £1bn buyback before the FY2025 results, expected in late February 2026 (around 26 February). ^[46] That results day will be a key test of whether mid‑single‑digit growth and margin expansion are sustainable into 2026.
Execution in DMI and AI products
DMI, the LG‑LSEG equity‑forecast tool, and broader Microsoft integrations will all be judged less on the press releases and more on actual adoption, revenue contribution, and evidence that they deepen LSEG’s moat rather than just burn R&D budget. ^[47]
Macro and competition
LSEG’s fortunes are heavily tied to global trading volumes, risk appetite and regulation. Competitors – from US data giants to nimble fintechs – are experimenting furiously with AI as well. Several analyst notes and Reuters coverage explicitly flag competition and AI pricing pressure as key structural risks even while maintaining Buy ratings. ^[48]

Bottom line: a structurally important franchise priced for continued execution

As of 2 December 2025, London Stock Exchange Group looks like this in distilled form:

A diversified market‑infrastructure and data franchise still posting mid‑single‑digit organic income growth and nudging margins higher. ^[49]
A company returning £2.5bn to shareholders through buybacks over 12 months, with near‑daily RNS evidence that it is a committed buyer around the current share price. ^[50]
A stock that has materially lagged the wider UK market over one year, but still commands a mid‑40s earnings multiple and carries near‑unanimous Buy / Strong Buy ratings with 40–45% implied upside from analyst targets. ^[51]
A strategic story built on AI, data, indices, clearing and tokenisation, with clear upside if the moat holds – and equally clear downside if competition and technology shifts erode pricing power faster than the Street expects. ^[52]