Intercontinental Exchange
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IntercontinentalExchange® (NYSE: ICE) operates the leading global, electronic marketplace for trading both futures and OTC energy contracts. ICE offers a range of contracts based on crude oil and refined products, natural gas, power and emissions. ICE conducts its futures markets through its FSA-regulated London-based subsidiary, ICE Futures, which is Europe’s leading energy exchange. ICE Futures offers liquid markets in the world’s leading oil benchmarks: Brent Crude futures and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Crude futures, as well as the leading heating oil futures contract by traded volume.
ICE is the only marketplace offering integrated electronic markets for side-by-side trading of energy products in both futures and over-the-counter (OTC) markets, bringing together the world’s buyers and sellers of derivative and physical energy commodity contracts. ICE’s ability to offer centralized access to futures and OTC contracts on either a cleared or bilateral basis, and through multiple interfaces, allows participants to optimize trading opportunities, operations and strategies. ICE’s Internet-based platform increases the accessibility and transparency of the energy commodity markets and enhances the speed and quality of trade execution.
All futures and cleared OTC contracts are processed through a central clearinghouse – LCH.Clearnet.
ICE’s three business lines – ICE Markets, ICE Services and ICE Data –support trading across the OTC and commodity futures markets with an assortment of products and services that make ICE the comprehensive trading solution for global energy market participants.
Headquartered in Atlanta, ICE also has offices in Calgary, Chicago, Houston, London, New York and Singapore, with regional telecommunications hubs in Chicago, New York, London and Singapore.
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[edit] ICE Company History
In the late 1990s, Jeffrey Sprecher, ICE’s founder, chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, acquired Continental Power Exchange, Inc. with the objective of developing a platform to provide a more transparent and efficient market structure for OTC energy commodity trading. Mr. Sprecher realized that the electronic revolution in the international financial markets provided a great opportunity to bring the benefits of an electronic marketplace to energy trading. In May 2000, IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) was established, with its founding shareholders representing some of the world’s largest energy traders. The company’s mission was to transform OTC trading by providing an open, accessible, multi-dealer, around-the-clock electronic energy exchange. The new exchange offered the trading community better price transparency, more efficiency, greater liquidity and lower costs than manual trading.
In June of 2001, ICE expanded its business into futures trading by acquiring the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), now ICE Futures, which operated Europe’s leading open-outcry energy futures exchange. Since 2003, ICE has partnered with the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) to host its electronic marketplace. In April of 2005, the entire ICE portfolio of energy futures became fully electronic.
ICE became a publicly traded company on November 16, 2005, and was added to the Russell 1000® Index on June 30, 2006. The company announced its intent to acquire the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) on September 14, 2006.
