Following excellent first-quarter results, in which revenues leapt by 25pc, London Stock Exchange Chairman Chris Gibson-Smith has sounded a warning about a possible takeover by Nasdaq.

The imp in the hearth remains U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley regulations which could add millions of pounds in bureaucracy to London’s costs and hit the LSE’s buoyant business. Despite the FSA’s talks with its American counterpart, the SEC, worries have not been dispelled.

Gibson-Smith is reported as saying: “We fully understand that London’s stakeholders do not want a combination of exchanges that might lead to the import of unsuitable regulations and incompatible market models.”

Now if London can be as decisive in its own interests as Bob Greifeld has been in Nasdaq’s, the LSE may yet turn the tables. Euronext might be seen as having drunk from the poisoned chalice, and London could power away on a tide of new business.