The New Yorker running on LSE is ready to go until the end

David Schwimmer did not panic when the Financial Times unveiled plans for the boldest acquisition of the long history of the London Stock Exchange. Instead, the director of one of the oldest institutions in the city of London complied.

Last Sunday, just 36 hours after the announcement of the news by the LSE, Refinitiv, better known for Eikon terminals that transmit real-time data and information to traders' offices, was signing a contract $ 27 billion purchase. with charity companions in Hyde Park for a 10 km run.

The only glance at the fact that one of the defining moments of his career – and the exchange of over 300 years – was that he had taken a call from his chief financial officer , David Warren, halfway through.

The announcement of the deal was finally announced Thursday and it had been a year to the day that Mr Schwimmer, who had spent two decades as a business banker at Goldman Sachs before moving to headquarters of the LSE in Paternoster Square, had quietly taken the reins of LSE Xavier Rolet, his long-time predecessor.

"It does not seem like a big coincidence while he was managing director of one of the major exchanges," said Nandini Sukumar, managing director of the World Federation of Exchanges, a trade organization to which Mr Schwimmer joined after the withdrawal of the group by Mr. Rolet. outside.

His arrival made little noise, but the New Yorker made his mark this week. LSE shares jumped by more than 20%, as investors praised a deal that could make the UK group a global heavyweight, just as the battleground of trading is getting bigger and bigger. transactions in the supply and valuation of financial data.

Described as "calm" and "collegial" by an adviser, Mr. Schwimmer landed at the LSE at the end of a period of turbulence for the company. Mr Rolet's exit sparked a fight with one of the group's main shareholders, while the failure of his merger with German rival Deutsche Boerse cast a shadow.

President Donald Brydon chose Mr. Rolet's successor as the last act of his term. Although Mr Schwimmer's choice leaves a little puzzling, a close look at his CV reveals a logic.

It's not something he's going to do for two or three years and then reverse it, he's in the loop

A graduate in English at Yale, Mr. Schwimmer joined Goldman in 1998 after four years of law school and two years at Manhattan law firm Davis Polk. Although he spent the last years of his career at the US Investment Bank, working on metals and mining transactions, the foundation of his career was based on trading advice as they moved from their members to for-profit companies.

"He has always been very involved in trade and the surrounding area," said one of Schwimmer's former officials at Goldman Sachs. "Few people know anything about it." It is for this reason that the appointment of Mr. Schwimmer as CEO of the LSE was not totally unpredictable: "If you ever told me that he was going to become CEO of ### Unilever would have surprised me.

When Intercontinental Exchange, one of the largest foreign exchange groups and owner of the New York Stock Exchange, was created in 2000, Mr. Schwimmer was a consultant because Jeffrey Sprecher's Continental Power Exchange became a larger group of companies. market infrastructures. Cboe's IPO in 2010 is the result of five years of work between Mr. Schwimmer and Bill Brodsky, who led Cboe's board of directors for two decades.

"Even though he was not the eldest, it's thanks to David that we hired Goldman," said Brodsky.

The focus on trading and market infrastructure has also allowed him to connect with some of Goldman's top executives and alumni. Former CEO, Hank Paulson, was involved in trading transactions, just like Lloyd Blankfein. John Thain, President and Chief Operating Officer of Goldman between 1999 and 2004, was at the helm of the NYSE during the agreement on the archipelago on which Mr. Schwimmer had worked.

This helped Mr. Schwimmer, a New York Mets fan, climb the ladder, thus moving it away from the highly connected world of trade. Mr Blankfein chose him as chief of staff while he was chief operating officer, and then sent him to head the Russian operations of the bank in 2006.

Yet Mr Schwimmer, who learned Russian at the university and briefly worked there for NBC news in the early 90s, maintained his links with the industry. Despite job changes, Cboe insisted that he remain on their books.

Although on a larger scale, the agreement for Refintiv is in many ways an extension of the pivot that Mr. Rolet created for market data. The acquisitions of Russell Investments and the remaining 50% of FTSE International have allowed the LSE to position itself firmly in the indexing sector, dominated by companies like MSCI.

A contemporary of Goldman insists that Mr. Schwimmer will see the Refinitiv agreement come to fruition as hard work begins. "It's not something he's going to do for two or three years and then reverse it, he's in it."