Pride comes before a fall as the jilted bride is finding partners look scarce

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Having set out on a proudly independent path, and rejecting mergers with Nasdaq and Deutsche Börse, the London exchange now finds itself isolated and vulnerable.

What should have been the saving grace, a tie-up with Toronto in which London was the dominant partner with a 55% stake, has perished spectacularly and embarrassingly.

The irony is that the LSE's downfall has been caused by the very thing by which it set great store down the years: unbridled patriotism. The Canadians weren't fooled by the spin: they saw the proposed deal, billed as a marriage of equals, for what it was, namely a takeover by a foreign party.

And they simply weren't having it. From the outset, the merger was unpopular in Canada. To reinforce that mood and to scupper the union, a rival local consortium was formed and the LSE's courtship was doomed.

LSE shareholders should be asking how the company made such a cack-handed miscalculation and why it should now be expected, even now, to stump up
£25 million in advisers' fees. They might like to question what they got, exactly, for that money?

Where it leaves the LSE is the jilted bride, alone and unloved. As other exchanges join forces, London's position is weakening.

The upshot is that yes, the LSE remains British, but its pulling power is diminishing all the time.

The next occasion a suitor appears on the horizon, it may not be in a position to be so choosy and the result could see the LSE being swamped, say by the beefy American Nasdaq.

The problem for Xavier Rolet and his team at the LSE is that they're running out of potential partners. The LSE turned them down in the past; then, when it made a move, wanted to stay in charge and screwed up. The LSE continues to have its identity but the price it's paying is looking increasingly high.