London Stock Exchange Group Plc (LSE) agreed to snap up Refinitiv in a $27 billion blockbuster deal, betting on a future dominated by data.

The transaction is expected to complete in the second half of 2020, according to a statement on Thursday. The exchange confirmed it will issue shares as part of the transaction and holders of Refinitiv, the financial data and trading provider, will receive a stake of approximately 37%.

“With the acquisition of Refinitiv, we will transform our position as a leading global financial markets infrastructure group,” said LSE chief executive officer David Schwimmer in a statement, which also disclosed LSE’s half-year results. “Refinitiv brings highly complementary capabilities in data and capital markets.”

The purchase marks the first major move by CEO David Schwimmer, who joined the 300-year-old bourse from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. last August and has been riding a 30% surge in the stock price from his first day through 26 July, when news of the discussions broke. Until recently, he had made some strategic but low-key acquisitions, such as increasing the exchange’s stake in clearing business LCH Group Holdings Ltd.

Refinitiv will get 198.3 million pounds if merger clearances are not obtained. LSE said the deal is expected to produce 350 million pounds in annual savings within five years.

LSE has seen double-digit growth in the last few years from its information services unit, driven by the FTSE Russell indexes business, and adding a data giant would help accelerate that push as markets become more reliant on data-hungry machines.

Refinitiv serves over 40,000 institutions in 190 countries including buy and sell-side firms, governments and corporations. Its trading venues include a stake in the recently listed Tradeweb and the FXAll and Matching platforms, with average daily trading volume of over $400 billion in currencies and $500 billion in fixed income.

Refinitiv’s products also include the Eikon terminal and the trading-execution system Redi. Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with Refinitiv to provide financial news, data and information.

Blackstone Group Inc., Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, acquired 55% of Refinitiv – as the former financial and risk unit of Thomson Reuters was renamed – in a transaction last year that valued the business at $20 billion.

David Craig will join LSE’s executive committee and continue as CEO of Refinitiv.

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