London Stock Exchange is in talks to acquire the Refinitiv financial data and trading platform in a deal valued at US$27 billion

London Stock Exchange Group is in talks to acquire Refinitiv, the financial data and trading platform provider, in a deal that could be valued at US$27 billion and would add fuel to the bourse’s fastest-growing business.

The exchange would issue shares as part of the transaction and Refinitiv holders may receive a stake of approximately 37 per cent, LSE said early Saturday in London in a statement.

The effort is the first major strategic move by LSE Chief Executive Officer David Schwimmer, who joined the 218-year-old exchange from Goldman Sachs Group last August and has been riding a 40 per cent surge in the stock price this year.

The company has seen the most growth in the last few years from its information services unit, driven by the FTSE Russell Indexes business, and adding a data goliath would aim to help accelerate that push.

It would also be a quick flip for the Blackstone Group-led consortium that bought a majority stake in Refinitiv from Thomson Reuters last year. The company has been active ever since, as its Tradeweb Markets LLC bond-trading platform went public in April, and Deutsche Boerse’s chief executive officer said this week that his firm is still in talks to buy some of Refinitiv’s foreign-exchange business units.

News of the talks had filtered out on Friday. A deal could be announced as soon as next week, according to people familiar with the situation who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. No final agreement has been reached and the talks could still fall apart, the people said.

A formal agreement for the deal could be announced August 1, when LSE publishes half-year earnings, according to two of the people.