It will not have its tenth anniversary in the orders of the operator of the London stock Exchange : the French Xavier Rolet, age 57, will leave his position as executive director of London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) by December 2018. Just before the official release scheduled in the United Kingdom of the european Union (march 2019), which is an immense challenge for the financial centre of london. The LSE, which announced the news on Thursday, goes in search of a successor to such officer to a strong balance sheet, despite a mandate eventful.
“Under the leadership of Xavier, the LSE has built a clear strategy in place and successful, as well as a strong management team. Result : the market capitalization of the group increased from 800 million to almost 14 billion pounds today “, the equivalent of 15.6 billion euros, the group in its press release.
Transformed into an international group
Arrived in command in may 2009, Xavier Rolet, a graduate of the school of commerce of Marseille (Kedge Business School today) and Columbia university, grew up in Sarcelles, and started his career as a trader at Goldman, where he worked for ten years in New York and London, in the activities of stock markets. He then worked at Credit Suisse and Dresdner, and nine years at Lehman Brothers, where he headed the French subsidiary, which was sold to Nomura in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
“The mandate of Mr Rolet has been good for shareholders and translates into a creation of substantial value : the share price, adjusted for the capital increase to finance the acquisition of Russel, increased by 510% (compared to 69% for the FTSE 100),” notes the analyst of RBC Research.
“It has been a strong advocate of London as a global financial centre […] and has turned the London Stock Exchange of a place oriented on volumes and centred on London to a group of diverse and international, focused mainly on the pre-markets (intellectual property, data, information, benchmarks, and analytics) and post-markets (risk management services and clearing central). “
Deemed a go-getter, the banker, who has participated twice at the Dakar Rally, and wine lover (he owns a vineyard in Provence), was notably illustrated with the acquisition of LCH Clearnet in 2012, to become the largest clearing house in the world.
On the other hand, the multiple attempts of Xavier Rolet to marry the London Stock Exchange with another major operator markets, such as the Toronto stock Exchange in 2011, and Deutsche Börse, have failed. The director-general of the LSE had indicated that he would be leaving his position after the merger with the German operator, which was blocked in march by the european Commission, in a context in addition to become be extremely complicated, post-Brexit.
Gold output of the United Kingdom of the european Union will pose many operational problems and legal at the LSE. Xavier Rolet had moved the draft Brussels to impose the relocation within the EU of the activity of derivatives clearing in euro. This would be “total chaos” according to him. It was also estimated at 100,000 the number of jobs, direct and indirect, threatened in compensation to the City because of the Brexit.
