Clara pays out

The London Stock Exchange is doing all it can to talk up its prospects as a standalone business. That’s not surprising. Now that Deutsche Boerse has withdrawn from takeover discussions, the LSE has only one obvious suitor, Franco-Dutch rival Euronext. Clara Furse, the chief executive, therefore needs a strong organic growth story to give tension to discussions. And how better to signal that than by hiking the final dividend almost 50%? In reality, the rise in the divi was overdue. The LSE’s payo...