london stock exchange group plc said thursday that it plans to seek shareholder approval to buy back shares owned by the blackstonethomson reuters consortium as it reported a rise in 2022 pretax profit on the back of lower costs and supported by positive progress across all divisions the ftse 100 stockexchange and financialinformation company said it will seek shareholder approval at the upcoming annual general meeting in april to buy shares from the former refinitiv shareholders expected to be up to 750 million pounds 9019 million by april 2024 and starting in the second half of this year lseg reported a pretax profit of gbp124 billion compared with gbp894 million in 2021 adjusted earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortizationa metric that strips out exceptional and other oneoff itemsrose to gbp355 billion from gbp297 billion the groups total income excluding recoveries rose to gbp743 billion from gbp621 billion for the prior year a rise of 57 at constant currency total income was expected to be gbp740 billion according to the groups compiled forecasts it generated gbp33 billion in operating cash flow in 2022 and a further gbp11 billion from the disposal of noncore businesses and other property the board declared a final dividend of 753 pence a share taking the total payout for year to 1070 pence a share compared with 95 pence a share in 2021 the company expects 2023 revenue growth at constant currency to be between 6 and 8 while the adjusted ebitda margin is expected to be at around 48 ebitda margin for 2022 was 478 lseg said there has been strong progress with the integration of refinitiv both in terms of revenue and costs it said gbp68 million of recurring revenue synergies had been delivered by the end of last year ahead of guidance for gbp40 million to gbp60 million boosted by strong demand for data it has therefore raised synergy guidance to gbp350 million to gbp400 million by 2025 from gbp225 million lseg acquired its refinitiv financial markets data business for 15 billion in 2021 from blackstone and thomson reuters dow jones competes with thomson reuters in financial news and information services