"The Financial Times" reports that IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) the transatlantic exchange and clearing house operator, has agreed to acquire Israeli financial technology group SuperDerivatives. According to The Financial Times, ICE will pay $350 million in cash. It quotes people familiar with the matter as saying that a deal could be announced as early as this week.
According to The Financial Times, one attraction of SuperDerivatives is that as well as providing data and analytics on over-the-counter derivatives, it also has a chat platform similar to the one used on Bloomberg terminals.
"ICE has long wanted to crack the market for providing high-tech information terminals and has recently been under growing pressure to do so as Bloomberg and other financial information providers push into its core markets," the newspaper writes, adding that neither ICI nor SuperDerivatives was available for comment.
SuperDerivatives is based in Tel Aviv, and employs about 300 people. Its CEO is David Gershon, who founded the company in 2000. SuperDerivatives planned an IPO about six years ago at a valuation of some $1 billion, but the move did not go ahead. There have been reports in recent years that the company was for sale and that an investment bank was seeking a buyer. According to IVC, among the investors in the company are the Accel, Pitango, and Shavit funds.
ICE is traded on the New York Stock Exchange at a market cap of $21 billion. It operates the New York Stock Exchange and another ten stock markets, and is also active in derivatives trading. It had over $2 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the second quarter.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 5, 2014
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