The chief executive of Icap has ruled out reviving talks with the London Stock Exchange as higher revenues from European electronic and voice broking drove the interdealer broker's underlying first-half pre-tax profits up almost one quarter to £120.8m (€178.5m).

Michael Spencer, group chief executive at Icap, which held exploratory merger talks with the LSE during summer before the negotiations stalled, said today Icap has no plans to re-enter the fray after US exchange Nasdaq yesterday took its stake in the LSE to 28.75% and had a second bid for the LSE rejected by the company.