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LSE to Lift Refinitiv From Junk With $10 Billion Bond Sale

  • Bond will refinance expensive debt taken in Blackstone buyout
  • Weak investor protections in old bonds could cap gains
Pedestrians sit outside the London Stock Exchange.
Pedestrians sit outside the London Stock Exchange.Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg

London Stock Exchange Group Plc plans to sell $10 billion of high-grade bonds for its $27 billion takeover of Refinitiv, in a deal that will lift the data provider out of the depths of the corporate debt market and potentially hand some creditors a juicy payout that few saw coming.

The bond sale will help LSE repay $13.5 billion of junk-rated debt that Refinitiv, formerly a unit of Thomson Reuters Corp., issued less than a year ago to finance Blackstone Group Inc.’s acquisition of a majority stake in the business -- the largest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis.