The chairman and CEO of IntercontinentalExchange, whose Atlanta-based company is buying the New York Stock Exchange, reiterated Tuesday that he expects the deal to close in a matter of days.
In the meantime, ICE CEO Jeff Sprecher told investors that executives have taken a “deeper dive” into how ICE will operate after acquiring NYSE Euronext.
“We’ve made much more progress than I think we anticipated that we would,” Sprecher said in a conference call. “We have a very informed view of what businesses we’re going to put where … and how we can better organize the combined company.”
After the deal closes, he said, ICE will quickly begin to separate the businesses it does not want to own, and integrate those it does.
Details will not come out until after the deal closes, but Sprecher said he is “anxious” to start discussing potential changes to the way the stock exchange operates. The current system, he said, is neither helpful nor sustainable.
Now, he said, individual traders who are in the market infrequently have less information than funds that trade more regularly, and as a result may make poor trades that cost them more. The setup is “fundamentally wrong,” Sprecher said, and has led to a sense that the markets are unfair.
“I think the market model is going to change; I think people in the business want the change,” he said. “Hopefully by being transparent about it, we will be a positive force in causing the change.”
ICE, which will maintain dual headquarters in Atlanta and New York, acts like eBay for markets. It makes money by charging a commission as it matches buyers and sellers. The business also has a PayPal-like element, to ensure traders get paid.
ICE made $145 million in the third quarter, an 8.2 percent increase over the same period last year. Revenue climbed 4.5 percent in the quarter, to $337.9 million.
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