London Stock Exchange Group plc (LSEG) heads into the Christmas break with investors focused on two big, very 2025 themes: capital returns (a large ongoing share buyback) and AI-driven distribution (integrating LSEG’s licensed market data and analytics into new “agentic” workflows, including ChatGPT and Microsoft’s ecosystem).
Because UK markets are closed for Christmas and Boxing Day, the most recent actionable datapoints for LSEG stock are the final pre-holiday close on Wednesday, 24 December 2025, plus the company’s latest regulatory announcements, broker consensus, and recent strategic updates. [1]
LSEG share price today: where London Stock Exchange Group stock closed before Christmas
With London’s stock market shut on Thursday 25 December and Friday 26 December, LSEG shares last traded in a shortened Christmas Eve session. [2]
At the close on 24 December 2025, widely followed market-data pages showed LSEG around 8,874p. [3]
Those same data sources also put LSEG’s 52-week range roughly between 8,096p and 12,185p, underscoring how much sentiment has swung this year—particularly around AI disruption fears versus AI opportunity. [4]
The headline LSEG news on 25.12.2025: buybacks, buybacks, buybacks
If you’re looking for what’s current and verifiable today, it’s the buyback tape.
LSEG’s £1 billion buyback programme remains active into early 2026
LSEG announced the start of a share buyback programme of up to £1,000,000,000 on 4 November 2025, executed through Citigroup Global Markets Limited (Citi) acting as riskless principal. Purchases are set to end no later than 25 February 2026, with buying carried out on the London Stock Exchange and/or Turquoise and shares cancelled on settlement. [5]
That matters for stock investors because (all else equal) fewer shares can mechanically support earnings per share, and buybacks can signal management confidence in cash generation and valuation.
Latest transaction: LSEG bought 56,183 shares on 23 December
On 24 December 2025, LSEG reported it had purchased 56,183 ordinary shares on 23 December 2025 at an average price of 8,899.82p (lowest 8,862.00p, highest 8,940.00p) as part of the programme, and reiterated its intention to cancel the repurchased shares. [6]
Following the cancellation, LSEG reported 510,597,075 shares in issue (excluding treasury shares) and 21,451,599 shares held in treasury, with total voting rights of 510,597,075. [7]
A quick bit of arithmetic: at the disclosed average price, that single day’s purchase is roughly £5.0 million of buyback spend (56,183 × £88.9982). The bigger point isn’t the one-day number—it’s the consistency of execution into year-end.
Another recent buyback print: 112,852 shares (purchase date 19 December)
LSEG also disclosed an earlier purchase of 112,852 shares dated 19 December 2025, at an average price of 8,861.22p (low 8,794.00p, high 8,966.00p), again with the intention to cancel. [8]
The other big late-2025 driver: LSEG’s AI distribution push (ChatGPT + Microsoft + “agents”)
Buybacks are the heartbeat. AI is the narrative.
Reuters: LSEG integrating its data and analytics into ChatGPT
On 3 December 2025, Reuters reported that LSEG will integrate its financial data and analytics into ChatGPT, giving ChatGPT users with LSEG credentials access to LSEG data (including from products like Workspace and Financial Analytics) within the ChatGPT app via a phased rollout starting the week of 8 December. Reuters also described the integration as part of LSEG’s strategy to distribute licensed data more widely through AI platforms, using a Model Context Protocol (MCP) connector. [9]
LSEG’s own press release framed this as a new collaboration with OpenAI, with the connector intended to make it easier for enterprise users to pull trusted market context into AI-driven workflows. [10]
LSEG + Microsoft: moving from “interoperability” to “agentic” workflows
In mid-December, LSEG published detailed commentary on how its partnership with Microsoft is evolving beyond “connect the pipes” interoperability toward AI agents—systems that can understand intent, orchestrate tasks, and deliver outputs inside tools professionals already live in (think Teams/Excel/Microsoft 365 Copilot-style workflows). [11]
Microsoft itself has also positioned the partnership as part of a shift to agentic AI and “universal standards” like MCP connectors that let organisations plug trusted data sources into AI systems more cleanly. [12]
Why this matters for LSEG stock
For equity investors, this isn’t just “AI branding.” LSEG’s core economic engine is licensed, permissioned, enterprise-grade data and workflow tooling—exactly the stuff that becomes more valuable when AI makes analysis faster but also raises the stakes on provenance and auditability. That’s the optimistic read.
The skeptical read (also very 2025): AI could compress pricing power or disintermediate parts of the workflow stack if users stop paying for terminals and start paying for a cheaper “AI layer.” That debate is real—and it shows up directly in how the stock is valued.
An Investors’ Chronicle analysis in November captured the fear bluntly: investors worry recurring revenues from workflows and data/feeds could be pressured by AI-driven disruption, and it noted the shares had “derated” (re-rated lower) materially during 2025 amid those concerns. [13]
LSEG’s business momentum: what the company said in the latest trading update
LSEG’s Q3 2025 trading update (23 October 2025) is still the most recent detailed operating scorecard heading into year-end.
Key takeaways from LSEG’s own statement:
- Total income (excluding recoveries) was up 6.4% organic in Q3 (6.7% including M&A effects). [14]
- Annual Subscription Value (ASV)—a crucial recurring-revenue indicator—grew +5.6% organically at period-end, with management expecting “headline ASV growth” to accelerate into year-end. [15]
- LSEG raised margin guidance for FY2025 (excluding the post-trade transaction impact, it expected ~100 bps of constant-currency EBITDA margin expansion; SwapClear changes add another ~100 bps effect). [16]
Post-trade deal: margin and cashflow implications
In that same Q3 update, LSEG described a major post-trade transaction: 11 global banks agreed to invest in Post Trade Solutions (PTS), acquiring 20% for £170 million (implying an £850 million valuation for PTS). It also detailed changes to the SwapClear revenue share arrangements for total cash consideration of £1.15 billion (with amounts payable in 2025 and 2026), and said the transaction improves the Markets division EBITDA margin by ~250 bps and group margin by ~100 bps from 2025, with 2–3% adjusted EPS accretion in the current year. [17]
Reuters’ coverage of the same announcement highlighted the investor surprise around the deal structure and the associated buyback, which helped drive a sharp positive share reaction at the time. [18]
Analyst forecasts for LSEG stock: consensus targets and 2026–2027 outlook
LSEG’s published analyst consensus (as of 12 November 2025)
LSEG publishes a consolidated analyst consensus sourced from third-party models. As of 12 November 2025, LSEG reported:
- Analyst ratings: 17 Buy, 1 Hold, 0 Sell
- Consensus target share price: 12,244p
- Reference closing share price (as of 11/11/2025): 9,186p [19]
It also published detailed line-item forecasts through 2027. Highlights include:
- Total income (ex recoveries): £9,549m (2026), £10,215m (2027)
- Adjusted EBITDA margin (ex recoveries): 51.2% (2026), 51.6% (2027)
- Adjusted basic EPS: 462.8p (2026), 517.2p (2027)
- Dividend per share: 160.4p (2026), 179.1p (2027) [20]
If you compare that 12,244p consensus target with the ~8,874p close seen on 24 December, it implies roughly 38% potential upside—with the obvious caveat that target prices move, markets move, and 2026 will gleefully ignore everyone’s spreadsheets at least twice. [21]
Cross-check: third-party consensus snapshots
Data vendors won’t always match LSEG’s published consensus because they differ on contributing analysts, refresh timing, FX/rounding, and methodology. For example, Investing.com displayed an average price target in the same general neighborhood (and a high/low range), alongside a “Strong Buy” style consensus rating snapshot. [22]
The practical takeaway: directionally, the Street still leans constructive; numerically, don’t treat any single “consensus” number as gospel.
What’s the current market narrative? A bull case and a bear case for LSEG shares
The bull case: LSEG as a “picks-and-shovels” winner in AI-enabled finance
The optimistic thesis goes like this:
LSEG increasingly looks like a global financial markets infrastructure + data licensing business with expanding margins and high-value recurring revenues—not “just an exchange.” That’s also how the company describes itself: a global market infrastructure and data provider with significant operations across many countries. [23]
In that framing, AI is not a competitor—it’s a new distribution layer. If clients are going to ask questions in natural language, the valuable part isn’t the chatbot window; it’s the trusted, permissioned dataset behind the answer, plus the compliance controls and audit trail. LSEG is explicitly trying to insert itself into that layer via MCP connectors, platform partnerships, and enterprise workflow integrations. [24]
Even holiday-week brokerage commentary reflects that view. A Proactive report citing JPMorgan’s year-ahead outlook said JPMorgan sees LSEG as a beneficiary of AI adoption, particularly through new AI-driven distribution channels for data and analytics that may not be fully reflected in the share price. [25]
Then there’s the shareholder-return angle: the ongoing buyback programme is a clear, mechanical support for per-share metrics if cash generation holds up. [26]
The bear case: AI commoditises parts of the workflow stack
The bearish story is the mirror image:
If AI agents become the primary interface, customers may pressure vendors on pricing, shop more aggressively, or switch to alternative data stacks—especially where content is non-exclusive or substitutable. Investors’ Chronicle summed up the market anxiety: fears that AI-driven disruption could hit recurring workflow and data/feed revenues, contributing to a weaker valuation during 2025. [27]
LSEG itself implicitly acknowledges the sensitivity by emphasising how much of its data value comes from proprietary networks, specialised sources, enrichment, and standardisation—not “random public data scraped off the internet.” [28]
What to watch next for LSEG stock in early 2026
The next major catalyst is full-year 2025 results, and LSEG has already put a marker down on capital returns into that event.
In its Q3 update, LSEG said it intended to deploy a further £1 billion in share buybacks by the time of the group’s 2025 full-year results on 26 February 2026 (expecting to complete around half during 2025). [29]
Between now and then, the market will likely focus on:
- Evidence that ASV growth accelerates as management suggested. [30]
- Any measurable commercial traction from the ChatGPT integration and broader MCP-enabled distribution strategy. [31]
- Updates on post-trade economics (especially the SwapClear/PTS arrangements and margin impact). [32]
- Buyback pace and the evolving share count from ongoing “Transaction in Own Shares” disclosures. [33]
References
1. www.reuters.com, 2. www.reuters.com, 3. www.hl.co.uk, 4. www.hl.co.uk, 5. www.investegate.co.uk, 6. markets.ft.com, 7. markets.ft.com, 8. www.stockopedia.com, 9. www.reuters.com, 10. www.lseg.com, 11. www.lseg.com, 12. news.microsoft.com, 13. www.investorschronicle.co.uk, 14. www.lseg.com, 15. www.lseg.com, 16. www.lseg.com, 17. www.lseg.com, 18. www.reuters.com, 19. www.lseg.com, 20. www.lseg.com, 21. www.lseg.com, 22. uk.investing.com, 23. www.lseg.com, 24. www.reuters.com, 25. www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk, 26. www.investegate.co.uk, 27. www.investorschronicle.co.uk, 28. www.lseg.com, 29. www.lseg.com, 30. www.lseg.com, 31. www.reuters.com, 32. www.lseg.com, 33. markets.ft.com
