The London Stock Exchange's interim management statement this morning was expected to be a routine report on the group's first quarter results. However, the seventh bullet point out of eight stated that Ian Axe, chief executive of the LSE's newly-acquired clearing house LCH.Clearnet, was to leave the group following an "orderly handover".

Axe's departure comes just over two years after he first took the helm at the UK-based clearinghouse and a little over two months after it was acquired in a landmark €351 million deal by the LSE.