German who tried to buy LSE in £21bn merger quits

THE boss of Deutsche Boerse has been forced out following an insider trading fiasco after his disastrous attempted takeover of the London Stock Exchange.

Carsten Kengeter, 50, said last night that he was leaving for the good of the company. He is being probed for buying £4m of stock just days before the doomed deal was made public.

If German predator Deutsche had succeeded in its £21bn bid to buy the 216year- old LSE, Kengeter would have become its chief executive. But the enterprise collapsed amid European Union competition concerns, fears about the UK’s national interest and rancour from the German establishment.

Kengeter bought 60,000 Deutsche shares in December 2015, with the approval of his board and publicly disclosed at the time.

The chief executive has always maintained he did nothing wrong.

But in February this year Frankfurt authorities launched a probe and raided his office. Prosecutors have sought to agree a deal which would see him pay £447,000 to end their investigation but a court this week blocked this effort to settle the case.