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Derivatives Clearing Organizations Regulation
Review of Swaps for Mandatory Clearing
ICE Comment Letters
Designated Contract Market Regulation - Comment Letter - Intercontinental Exchange - February 22, 2011
Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange Group (ICE) is a global exchange, clearing, financial data and technology company, operating multiple markets and services across nine different asset classes. 
ICE operates 11 international regulated exchanges including its ICE futures and OTC exchanges in the US, Canada, Europe and Singapore. It also is the parent company of the well-known New York Stock Exchange and related securities exchanges. Today, the company is among the largest exchange groups in the world that has grown dramatically via a succession of acquisitions of other exchanges, technology firms and data service providers.
ICE, (NYSE: ICE), a publicly traded company since 2005, lists more than 12,000 derivatives and securities contracts on its markets. Its derivatives exchange properties include five regulated futures exchanges: ICE Futures US, ICE Futures Europe, ICE Futures Canada, ICE Futures Singapore and ICE Endex. On the securities side, ICE operates three stock exchanges: New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Arca and NYSE MKT (formerly AMEX); plus two US equity options exchanges NYSE Arca Options, NYSE AMEX Options and a corporate bond platform, NYSE Bonds. 
In the OTC space, ICE operates energy platforms ICE OTC Energy as well as credit and swaps markets such as ICE Swap Trade and Creditex. 
On its derivatives exchanges, ICE offers futures and OTC contracts on: energies, softs, grains, currencies, emissions, precious metals, interest rates, bonds as well as credit and equity indexes. With its stock and options exchanges, it offers traditional stock, equity options and exchange traded products. 
The exchanges are supported by six clearing houses, which handle the clearing and settlement functions for more than 6 million daily derivatives transactions on its markets. Included on its roster of clearinghouses are: ICE Clear US, ICE Clear Europe, ICE Clear Canada, ICE Clear Singapore, ICE Clear Netherlands and ICE Clear Credit.
It offers futures and OTC contracts on a single electronic ICE Trading Platform. Traders can access the platform via WebICE, an internet-based service for exchange members that provides data such as: live market quotes, depth of market, portfolio creation and other key trading information. 
In terms of its size by volume, ICE ranks as the world's fourth largest derivatives exchange with volume of 1.99 billion contracts traded in 2015, down 9.8 percent from 2.21 billion contracts in 2014, according to the Futures Industry Association annual volume survey published in March 2016. That volume is comprised of trading from ICE Futures Europe, ICE Futures US, ICE Futures Canada and ICE Futures Singapore, formerly the Singapore Mercantile Exchange on the futures side, and NYSE AMEX and NYSE Arca equity options volumes. 
As of December 31, 2015, ICE had 5,549 employees in its offices in Atlanta, New York, UK, Chicago and other locations around the world.
Of the the $3.1 billion in revenue generated in fiscal year in 2014, ICE's global derivatives business represented 53 percent of those revenues, 22 percent came from data services, 12 percent listings, 7 percent in US cash listings and 6 percent from other services.
The company also ranks among the leading exchanges in terms of market capitalization, from around $2 billion after its public offering in 2005 to $31.7 billion in July 2016.
 
==Background==
===Early Years===
ICE's roots go back to the 1997 acquisition of the Continental Power Exchange (CPEX) by Jeffrey C. Sprecher. 
With CPEX in poor financial health at the time, Sprecher purchased the company with a goal of building a trading platform for over-the-counter energy markets. The company's technology team then wanted to scrap everything it had been working on under CPEX's prior management and rebuild the system as an internet-based platform using software and coding from Oracle and Java. Sprecher approved the move and the system became the foundation for ICE's globally distributed, high-speed, high-capacity trading platform it uses today. It was a difficult period for the company. During the technology rebuild, the company lost every one of its customers and its staff of 30 had shrunk to just six people.
In 1999, ICE faced another challenge as Enron was pushing its own electronic trading platform called EnronOnline with large energy companies. Meanwhile, Sprecher and CPEX vice president Charles Vice moved to partner with large Wall Street and energy firms. With the company struggling financially and battling a much larger competitor in Enron, Sprecher granted an 80 percent equity stake in the company in return for their commitment to trade on the platform. Companies such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, British Petroleum, Shell and Total and others were among those early investors. 
In 2000, the company was renamed the IntercontinentalExchange, or ICE, with a goal of becoming the largest OTC energy market. When Enron collapsed under a massive fraud and accounting scandal in 2001, ICE was perfectly positioned to take on those customers and grow quickly through a series of acquisitions that helped it achieve its global ambitions.
 
In 2001, ICE made one of its earliest and arguably most significant acquisitions, the London-based International Petroleum Exchange, or IPE. That provided ICE with an entry into the futures exchange space with European energy futures. ICE shut down the IPE's trading floor and migrated all of the trading onto its electronic trading platform by 2005, making it the first fully electronic energy futures exchange.
The move made ICE a direct competitor to the New York Mercantile Exchange. NYMEX then attempted to compete with ICE in Europe, opening a new floor-based exchange in Dublin in November 2004. But as electronic trading continued its rapid growth and acceptance in the financial markets, NYMEX's plan to lure London IPE floor traders and trading away was a complete failure. NYMEX's resistance to full-time electronic trading cost the exchange marketshare in crude oil trading to ICE, and eventually forced it to adopt the CME Group's trading platform, CME Globex in 2006, to compete. ICE later renamed the IPE as ICE Futures Europe, and has since expanded its product offering well beyond energies. NYMEX was bought by CME Group in 2008. 
Also, in 2002, ICE created ICE Data, a service that provides futures and OTC market data globally to end-users. That segment of its business would be massively expanded in subsequent acquisitions and today is called ICE Data Services.
ICE also partnered with the Chicago Climate Exchange, or CCX, hosting its emissions contracts in conjunction with CCX's subsidiary, the European Climate Exchange. ICE would later buy that exchange in 2010 and fold it into ICE Futures US and ICE Futures Europe.
===Going Public, Bidding on CBOT, and more Exchange and Clearing Acquisitions: 2005 to 2010===
On November 16, 2005, ICE went public on the New York Stock Exchange. The IPO was priced at $26 per share for 16 million shares. The opening day share price valued the company at over $2 billion, and was up 50.9 percent on day one, closing at $39.25. 
The ICE IPO was part of a trend at the time of traditional member-owned and newer exchanges going through demutualization and then going public. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange went public in 2002 while the International Securities Exchange listed in March 2005, followed by the Chicago Board of Trade's IPO in October 2005, followed by the ICE public offering. On Sept. 25, 2007, ICE was added to the S&P 500 Index.
ICE made another key acquisition in January 2007, the New York Board of Trade for approximately $1 billion, which not only helped move ICE beyond energy products and into commodities such as coffee, sugar, cocoa, orange juice and currencies, but also brought them another critical piece of infrastructure, a US-based clearinghouse. ICE quickly moved to shutter the NYBOT trading floor, migrating those contracts onto its electronic trading platform and upgrading its clearing house to handle all ICE Futures US volume. Having its own clearing house meant ICE would no longer depend on an outside clearing facility to handle clearing and settlement for US business, not to mention it provided new revenues for the company. 
ICE was still considered a smaller player among established futures markets, but gained everyone's attention in March 2007, when it made an unsolicited $9.9 billion bid to buy the Chicago Board of Trade during the FIA Boca International Futures Industry Conference. CBOT then was in merger negotiations with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The bid topped the CME's offer of $8.9 billion for the CBOT, and threw the long-expected Chicago tie-up into question. CME eventually upped its bid for the CBOT, largely due to the competing counter-offers from ICE, closing the deal for $11.6 billion in July 2007. 
Even though it lost that bid, ICE continued to push forward with new acquisitions, purchasing the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange in July 2007. The exchange, best known for its canola futures, was renamed ICE Futures Canada also included a Canadian regulated clearinghouse, which was renamed ICE Clear Canada.
The company made three more key acquisitions in 2008. In February 2008, ICE purchased YellowJacket Software, a peer-to-peer messaging platform used to trade on OTC options markets. This software, used extensively in the OTC trading space, was renamed ICE Chat. 
In September 2008, ICE moved into the burgeoning credit derivatives space with the purchase of an interdealer market called Creditex for $625 million in cash and stock. That purchase, which provided ICE with the technology to handle trade execution and processing of credit default swaps in the US, Europe and Asia, would serve as one of the core pieces of ICE's credit derivatives business. ICE later sold off certain US Creditex voice brokerage services to Tullett Prebon in July 2016.
 
 
In October 2008, ICE moved to bolster that business with a clearing house acquisition. ICE purchased The Clearing Corporation, formerly known as the Board of Trade Clearing Corporation, with the support of that clearing facility's main member firms: Bank of America, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS. The clearing house was then designated to serve as a comprehensive clearing facility for the CDS market. Initially the clearing house was called ICE Trust but later was renamed ICE Clear Credit and launched in March 2009 as the world's first credit default swap clearinghouse. It is regulated by the SEC and CFTC and is designated as a Systemically Important Financial Market Utility. 
In 2009, ICE launched its second credit default swap clearing house, ICE Clear Europe giving it an early lead in the global CDS clearing space. ICE Clear Europe operates in a dual and separate fashion. One one side of the clearinghouse, ICE Clear Europe's CDS clearing operations, launched in July 2009, serves its European CDS markets. On the other side, ICE Clear Europe, launched in 2008, handles all of its European futures trading ranging from energies to interest rate futures.
By September 2012, ICE had cleared more than 1 million CDS trades to date. 
The creation of ICE Clear Europe was another critical piece of its global clearing strategy. Before launching its own European clearing house, it had used LCH.Clearnet to handle its European futures trades. It completed the transition of cleared trades from LCH.Clearnet to ICE Clear Europe in November 2008.
===ICE's Biggest Deal NYSE Euronext: 2011 to 2013===
With US, Canadian and European exchanges and clearinghouses in tact, ICE set its sights on its largest acquisition. In April 2011, ICE and Nasdaq OMX partnered to make an offer of $11.3 billion in stock and cash for NYSE Euronext, which operated the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Arca, NYSE Arca Options, Amex options as well as the stock and derivatives markets in the Euronext group, which included Euronext LIFFE, one of the main futures markets for European interest rate futures. 
Under the proposed deal, ICE would have acquired NYSE Euronext's derivatives businesses and Nasdaq would have received Euronext's stock exchanges, the NYSE and its cash markets, the US options exchanges as well as Euronext's stock markets in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Lisbon. 
That offer and two subsequent offers were rejected by the NYSE Euronext board and the offer was finally dropped in May 2011, citing opposition to the deal from US antitrust regulators. It also opened the door to a prior bid in February 2011 from Deutsche Boerse for NYSE Euronext. But that bid also was killed by European Union anti-competition agencies in February 2012. 
ICE came back with its own solo offer for NYSE Euronext in December 2012 for $8.2 billion. The combination stock and cash deal closed on November 13, 2013 for approximately $11 billion. 
Sprecher said "This is a game changing transaction," at the time as the deal provided ICE with new asset classes in stocks, equity options and additional European financial futures. The deal pushed ICE's market cap valuation to about $23 billion.
The big win for ICE in the deal was the LIFFE exchange (formerly the London International Financial Futures Exchange or NYSE LIFFE, the London-based futures market which offers key benchmark indexes, interest rate contracts and agriculture futures. Liffe futures were migrated over to ICE Futures Europe including: Sterling futures, Euribor futures and Long Gilt futures among others. It also acquired commodities such as cocoa, robusta coffee and sugar, giving ICE softs futures in both the US and Europe. It completed the migration in November 2014 
The new holding company formed in the acquisition retained ICE's ticker symbol and the enlarged entity is called ICE Group. Sprecher remained chairman and CEO of the combined company; NYSE Euronext CEO Duncan Niederauer became the president of ICE but stepped down in May 2014.
As part of the plan, ICE spun off Euronext in an initial public announced on June 19, 2014, with the stock trading the next day. Before the IPO, ICE sold a stake of 33.36 percent to a group that included Banco Espirito Santo SA, BNP Paribas SA (BNP), ABN Amro Group NV, Societe Generale SA (GLE) and Euroclear SA/NV, at a price of €19.20 per share. 
Other notable moves by ICE included taking a majority stake of 79.12 percent in APX Endex in September 2012, taking control of the Amsterdam-based company's Dutch gas and power derivatives business. It was renamed ICE Endex and is a joint initiative with Gasunie, a European gas infrastructure company. 
 
ICE took steps to gain a foothold in Brazil with two investments. In April 2011, it announced a partnership to launch BRIX, a Brazilian market for electric power. BRIX launched in June 2011, using ICE's electronic trading platform. ICE also took a 12.4 percent of Cetip, Brazil's largest clearinghouse in July 14, 2011. Under the deal, ICE paid $512 million in cash, or R$25.50 for its shares in Cetip. That deal may provide ICE with a greater presence in the Latin American market.
===ICE Moves Into Data: ICE Data Service Created ===
ICE looked to further diversify after the NYSE Euronext deal with a series of strategic investments, particularly in data services and technology, power and energy markets as well as in exchanges and clearing houses in Europe and Asia. 
In October 2014, ICE purchased SuperDerivatives, a market data and analytics provider specializing in derivatives pricing models across all asset classes, risk analysis and cloud-based market technology, as well as a chat platform that is similar to competitors such as Bloomberg. The deal was priced at $350 million in cash. 
That was followed by another bold move in the data space in December 2015 with a $5.2 billion cash and stock acquisition of Interactive Data Holdings Corp., a subsidiary of Silver Lake and Warburg Pincus. The firm provides pricing data to more than 5,000 customers including many of the firms that use ICE's markets and services, such as asset managers, hedge funds, banks and insurance companies. 
It complemented those services in March 2016, announcing the acquisition of two business data units from McGraw Hill Financial, Standard & Poor's Evaluations, a fixed income evaluation pricing service and Credit Market Analysis, a data provider for OTC markets.
All of these units and ICE's existing data services group were folded into one division that was renamed ICE Data Services in June 2016. The division offers data solutions for information, analytics and connectivity, as well as proprietary data and tools in fixed income, equities, commodities, FX and options. It offers real-time pricing, data from its 11 exchanges, desktops and tools and connectivity and hosting services. 
===More OTC and Clearing, plus Asia: 2013 to 2016===
In the exchange and clearing space, ICE made three key acquisitions from 2013 to 2016, helping the company expand in European energies and clearing, as well as launching its first exchange in Asia. 
ICE expanded into Asia with the purchase of the Singapore Mercantile Exchange and its clearing house SMX Clearing Corporation in November 2013 for $200 million. The exchange was essentially shut down, revamped and renamed ICE Futures Singapore, and was launched in November 2015 with five contracts in brent crude, gasoil, gold and Renminbi futures, cleared at the exchange's renamed clearinghouse ICE Clear Singapore. ICE Futures Singapore represents another step in the global expansion for ICE, and an effort to address more Asian clients. It also is the first exchange, among non-domestic markets such as CME Group and Eurex, to launch a Singapore-based exchange and is considered a challenger to the domestic market, Singapore Exchange, or SGX. 
 
ICE also completed a majority stake purchase in December 2014 of the Holland Clearing House, which is the central counterparty clearing facility for equity and index derivatives contracts listed on The Order Machine, or TOM in the Netherlands. The facility was renamed ICE Clear Netherlands in July 2015, as the sixth clearing house under the ICE Group umbrella and the first continental European clearing facility for ICE. 
ICE completed another key acquisition in the European energy space in December 2015 with the purchase of Trayport, a London-based OTC energy market. ICE purchased the company from BGC Partners and GFI, a subsidiary of BGC, for approximately $650 million in ICE shares, and in the process, beat out competitor CME Group, which also had bid for Trayport. Trayport helped bolster ICE's strong position in European energy futures and OTC markets, as a key market used by many in the power, natural gas and coal trading space. 
 
ICE also launched a CFTC-registered swap execution facility (SEF), on October 2, 2013. The SEF was granted permanent registration status, along with 18 other SEFs, in January 2016. 
==Company Overview: Exchanges, Clearing Houses, Technology, Data Services==
ICE Futures Exchanges	ICE Futures Exchanges	ICE Futures Exchanges	ICE Futures Exchanges
*ICE Futures U.S., previously known as The Board of Trade of the City Of New York (NYBOT), was acquired by ICE in 2007. ICE Futures U.S. is the second largest derivatives exchange in the United States, offering futures and options on energies, agricultural commodities, precious metals, foreign exchange and equity indexes and credit. ICE Futures U.S. is a Designated Contract Market regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In January 2008, ICE's primary trade matching engine for all OTC and futures products migrated permanently from Atlanta to the company's Chicago data center location. The hosting facility includes expanded co-location capabilities and provides the physical space, electric power, and bandwidth necessary to accommodate continued growth in ICE's messaging traffic, trading volume and customer base. The Atlanta-based data center is the disaster recovery site for the ICE trade matching engine.
*ICE Futures Europe originated in 1981 as the International Petroleum Exchange of London (IPE). ICE purchased IPE in 2001 and renamed it ICE Futures Europe. It is the largest regulated energy futures exchange in Europe, and the second largest in the world. The exchange’s benchmark contract, the ICE Brent Crude futures contract, is relied upon to price two-thirds of the world’s physical oil, and the ICE Gas oil futures contract is the world’s largest refined petroleum product futures contract. As a result, half of the worlds crude and refined oil futures trade in the exchange's markets.
It also offers contracts on short-, medium- and long-term interest rates such as the Eurodollar and GCF Repo futures, agriculture such as softs, emissions and equity derivatives such as the FTSE and MSCI futures.
ICE Futures Europe is a Recognised Investment Exchange and regulated by the U.K. Financial Services Authority (FSA), with additional oversight by the CFTC, including position limits and enhanced reporting, for all U.S. linked contracts. ICE shut down the former IPE trading floors and switched trading over to an all electronic trading platform in 2005, making it the first fully electronic energy exchange in the world.
*ICE Futures Canada was established in 1887 as the Winnipeg Grain & Produce Exchange. It later became the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange (WCE) and was acquired by ICE in 2007. North America’s first fully electronic commodity exchange, ICE Futures Canada offers futures contracts on oil seeds and grain, including the world’s leading canola futures. It is regulated by the Manitoba Securities Commission.
*ICE Futures Singapore, formerly the Singapore Mercantile Exchange founded in 2010 by a firm led by Financial Technologies Group. ICE purchased the exchange and its clearing house SMX Clearing Corporation in November 2013 for $200 million.
The exchange was essentially shut down, revamped and renamed ICE Futures Singapore, and launched in November 2015 with five contracts in brent crude, gasoil, gold and Renminbi futures, cleared at the exchange's renamed clearinghouse ICE Clear Singapore. ICE Futures Singapore is the fifth futures exchange for ICE. 
 
*ICE Endex is an energy exchange in continental Europe, providing European natural gas and power markets. ICE acquired a majority stake of 79.12 percent in APX Endex in September 2012, taking control of the Amsterdam-based company's Dutch gas and power derivatives business. It was renamed ICE Endex and is a joint initiative with Gasunie, a European gas infrastructure company, listing more than 800 energy contracts.	 	 	
ICE Securities Exchanges	ICE Securities Exchanges	ICE Securities Exchanges	ICE Securities Exchanges
*New York Stock Exchange was purchased by ICE as part of the NYSE Euronext acquisition in November 2013 for $11 billion. The NYSE, founded in 1792, lists medium and large companies and is also known as the "Big Board." 
*NYSE MKT is the counterpart securities exchange to NYSE, designed to support younger, high-growth companies that fit into the small-cap category. The exchange, formerly known as NYSE Amex, changed its name in May 2010.
*NYSE Arca is a fully-electronic marketplace that lists more than 8,000 exchange-listed securities on NYSE and Nasdaq. 
*NYSE Bonds is a bond market, launched in April 2007, that offers traders a web-based tool, NYSE Bond Directory, which provides investors with access to pricing data on individual corporate bonds. The platform replaced the Automated Bond System platform which allowed trading in debt securities.	 	 	
NYSE Options Exchanges	NYSE Options Exchanges	NYSE Options Exchanges	NYSE Options Exchanges
*NYSE Amex Options, owned by IntercontinentalExchange Group since November 2013, is a US options exchange. It trades options on US-listed stocks, American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), broad-based, industry sector and international indexes, exchange traded funds (ETFs), and HOLDRS. In addition to conventional options, it also trades LEAPS and equity and index FLEX options. 
*NYSE Arca Options, owned by ICE since 2013, is a "hybrid market" which offers both electronic and floor executed options including stock options, index options, ETF and ETN options and FLEX and LEAP options. The exchange has floor operations in San Francisco, the location of the former Pacific Stock Exchange.	 	 	
ICE OTC Markets	ICE OTC Markets	ICE OTC Markets	ICE OTC Markets
*ICE OTC Energy is the internet-based global OTC energy market launched in 2000, and was the first major market and foundation for the company. The platform offers cleared and bilateral transactions on crude oil, natural gas, power, refined petroleum and natural gas liquids (NGL) contracts. ICE’s Henry Hub OTC natural gas swap is regulated by the CFTC as a Significant Price Discovery Contract. More than 95% of ICE's OTC energy volume is cleared.
*Creditex a credit derivatives brokerage acquired by ICE in 2008 paved the way for ICE to enter the OTC credit default swaps (CDS) market. Creditex is an interdealer broker for credit default swaps and bonds, using a hybrid model of voice and electronic execution. It was the first platform to offer electronic CDS trading. 
*ICE Swap Trade is a cleared swap execution facility offering credit default swaps indexes, single names, bilateral energy trades on natural gas, electricity and oil swaps. Participants can use the ICE Trade Vault, which is a global depository for the reporting of energy and CDS swaps.	 	 	
ICE Clearing Houses	ICE Clearing Houses	ICE Clearing Houses	ICE Clearing Houses
*ICE Clear U.S. serves the markets of ICE Futures U.S. ICE Clear U.S. is a Derivatives Clearing Organization under the Commodity Exchange Act and is regulated by the CFTC.
*ICE Clear Europe serves the futures markets of ICE Futures Europe and ICE’s OTC energy markets. In July 2009, London-based ICE Clear Europe introduced clearing for European CDS, with a separate risk pool, guaranty fund and margin accounts, as well as a dedicated risk management system and governance structure. ICE Clear Europe is a U.K. Recognised Clearing House and is regulated by the FSA. In January 2010, ICE Clear Europe received U.S. derivatives clearing organization (DCO) registration from the CFTC and was the first new European clearing house to open in more than a century.
*ICE Clear Canada serves the markets of ICE Futures Canada, which trades canola oil futures. It is regulated by the Manitoba Securities Commission.
*ICE Clear Singapore is the clearing facility for ICE Futures Singapore clearing futures contracts on FX, metals and energy.
*ICE Clear Credit formerly, ICE Trust U.S. is a U.S.-based credit default swap clearing house. In March 2009, ICE Trust became the world's first operational CDS clearing house.
*The Clearing Corporation was established in 1925 as the nation’s first independent futures clearing house. It provides the risk management framework, operational processes and clearing infrastructure for the ICE Trust and ICE Clear Europe CDS clearing houses. 
*ICE Clear Netherlands is ICE's continental European clearing house, handling trades executed on the Dutch securities exchange The Order Machine or TOM. The clearing house also has regulatory license on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories under European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR).	 	 	
ICE's technology and services	ICE's technology and services	ICE's technology and services	ICE's technology and services
ICE technology and services
*ICE Trading Platform is the trading system for ICE futures markets and can be accessed via a direct connection, the web or mobile aps or an independent software vendor. The platform offers sub 1-millisecond round-trip transaction times on ICE futures markets and supports 
bilateral and cleared OTC markets, as well as all ICE futures and options markets. ICE has more than 21,000 concurrent connections to its platform globally each day via is WebICE browser, and independent software vendors and co-location data centers. 
*WebICE is the web-based browser for the ICE Trading Platform for customers who want to connect to ICE through the internet. 
*ICE Mobile is the mobile technology for members wishing to trade or connect to ICE via mobile devices such as iPads, iPhones, Android and Blackberry. 
*ICE Chat, a peer-to-peer trade instant message negotiation application designed to meet the informational and risk management needs of OTC traders and brokers, formerly known as YellowJacket.	 	 	
ICE Data Services	ICE Data Services	ICE Data Services	ICE Data Services
ICE Data Services
*ICE Data, which compiles and repackages trading data which includes real-time information as well as historical, end-of-day reports, market records such as all-time open interest and volume highs, plus benchmark contracts and ICE indexes. The subscription service can be accessed as a view only service, indexes to track global products, and via Superderivatives, which offers analytics tools.
*NYSE Data Services provides real-time market information such as price, transaction and order book data on all contracts traded on the NYSE's cash and derivatives markets. Data is distributed to data vendors, financial institutions and service providers. It runs on the ICE Secured Financial Transaction Infrastructure of SFTI, a network that connects to more than 120 global markets including NYSE and ICE, plus alternative trading systems, clearing and settlement facilities and market data providers. 
 
*Interactive Data which was acquired by ICE in 2015, provides financial data and analytics in two main departments: Pricing and Reference Data, which includes evaluated pricing services, which are daily opinions of value on about 2.7 million fixed income securities, international equities and other hard to value instruments, reference data on more than 10 million global financial instruments and fixed income portfolio analytics and data. 
The other main department at IDG is Trading Solutions which includes: real-time market data feeds and trading infrastructure managed services for banks, brokers asset managers, hedge funds and others. This data across many asset classes helps support low latency traders and other applications dealing with portfolio pricing, risk and compliance. It also offers web applications and workstations providing market data, analytics and tools for traders. 
*Superderivatives which was acquired by ICE in October 2014, provides cloud-based market data and derivatives trading analytics on financial and commodity markets. The company offers live market data in real-time or as an end-of-day set of market rates. Its valuation services run on a technology platform so users can do full pricing analysis. 
*ICE Clear, which provides risk management, capital efficiency and maximum financial safeguards to participants in ICE's futures and OTC markets. The clearing platform supports all aspects of trade registration and contract settlement, while guaranteeing traded contracts registered for clearing. In addition to clearing contracts that are executed on the ICE platform, ICE accepts automated submission of off-exchange trades for clearing.
*Trayport was acquired by ICE in December 2015, and provides electronic and hybrid trade execution services to the European OTC energy markets on power, natural gas and coal. 
*ICE eConfirm, which provides a fast, accurate and legally binding alternative to manual, paper confirmations that confirms trades within seconds or minutes.
*ICE Chat, a peer-to-peer trade instant message negotiation application designed to meet the informational and risk management needs of OTC traders and brokers, formerly known as YellowJacket.
*'Trade Vault is a swap data and trade repository for energy and commodity markets. It connects institutions, clearing houses, exchanges, middleware platforms and electronic trade confirmation services which includes eConfirm, for reporting obligations in North America, Europe and Asia. It also distributes real-time trade and historical data in its data warehouse and reporting platform. It is registered under CFTC's Dodd-Frank and EMIR, the Eastern Canadian Provincial Rules and Policies, and ACER's REMIT as a Registered Reporting Mechanism (RRM).
*ICE Link is a post-trade application for credit default swaps, providing industry participants with electronic post-trade affirmation and connections to real-time clearing. It is used in credit default swaps markets by more than 800 buy-side institutions, 26 sell-side dealers and 12 prime brokers.
*ICE Benchmark Administration or IBA is the administrator of three key global benchmarks: ICE LIBOR, or London Interbank Offered Rate, (formerly the BBA LIBOR), ICE Swap Rate and LBMA Gold Price. 
In February 2014, ICE was authorized by the FCA in London to oversee the LIBOR benchmark. 
In July 2014 ICE took over the administration of the ISDAFIX benchmark, a key rate for the pricing and settlement of swaps which is now called the ICE Swap Rate.
And in March 2015, ICE was given authority to oversee the Gold Price, previously known as the London Bullion Market Association Gold Fixing Price, established in 1919.	 	 	
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== Acquisitions & Transactions==
*June 2001: ICE expanded its business into the regulated futures markets by acquiring the International Petroleum Exchange for $130 million in cash and stock. On Sept. 3, 2007, the exchange was renamed ICE Futures Europe.
*January 2007: ICE acquired the New York Board of Trade for $1 billion, which included NYBOT's clearing house. While the acquired futures contracts were moved to trade only on the ICE electronic platform, the option products continue to be traded both electronically and via its traditional open outcry mode. On Sept. 3, 2007, the exchange was renamed ICE Futures U.S.
*July 2007: ICE acquired and integrated ChemConnect's markets to its over the counter business, adding a marketplace for natural gas liquids (NGL’s), propane and other chemicals.
*August 2007: ICE acquired the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange for $37.4 million, and changed its name to ICE Futures Canada on January 1, 2008.
*October 2007: ICE acquired Chatham Energy, an OTC energy brokerage firm specializing in structuring and facilitating transactions in the energy options markets.
*January 2008: ICE acquired YellowJacket Software, a peer-to-peer instant messaging trading tool for the OTC markets. The technology was renamed ICE Chat.
*August 2008: ICE acquired Creditex Group, Inc., a credit default swaps processor in the U.S., Europe and Asia for $625 million. The transaction, totaled $625 million.
*March 2009: ICE completed its acquisition of The Clearing Corporation and launched clearing services for CDS under ICE Trust using TCC’s technology and risk management frameworks. It was later rebranded as ICE Clear Credit. 
*July 2010: ICE completed its purchase of the Climate Exchange plc for $606.7 million dollars. The Climate Exchange includes the Chicago Climate Exchange, the European Climate Exchange and the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange. ECX is the world's largest trader of carbon-emissions permits under the EU cap-and-trade system while CCX trades mostly voluntary permits in the U.S. market.
*July 14, 2011: ICE announced the acquisition of 12.4 percent of Cetip, Brazil's largest clearinghouse. Under the deal, ICE paid $512 million in cash, or R$25.50 for its shares in Cetip. Advent International, which invested in Cetip prior to its initial public offering, was the main seller and with the sale, transitioned off the board of Cetip.
*September 2012. ICE acquired WhenTech, a technology software firm focused on options valuation, analytics and risk management.
*March 2013: ICE acquired 79 percent of APX-Endex's derivatives and spot business, and renamed the company ICE Endex. It's contracts are traded on the ICE Trading Platform and cleared on ICE Clear Europe.
*November 13, 2013: ICE acquired NYSE Euronext in a stock-and-cash transaction valued at approximately $11 billion. The exchange had first announced plans to buy NYSE Euronext on December 20, 2012. The terms of the deal called for $11.27 in cash and 0.1703 shares of ICE for each NYSE Euronext share. ICE spun off Euronext in an initial public offering announced on June 19, 2014, with the stock trading the next day. The shares were sold for 20 euros apiece in an 845 million euro ($1.2 billion) transaction. The stock trades in Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels under the “ENX” symbol. All of the 42,248,881 offered Shares were sold in the IPO, representing 60.36% of the total issued ordinary share capital of the company. Before the IPO, ICE sold a stake of 33.36% to a group that included Banco Espirito Santo SA, BNP Paribas SA (BNP), ABN Amro Group NV, Societe Generale SA (GLE) and Euroclear SA/NV, at a price of €19.20 per share. 
*February 2014: ICE acquired the Singapore Mercantile Exchange, including its clearing house subsidiary, the SMX Clearing Corporation (SMXCC) in an all-cash transaction for $200 million. The exchange would be renamed ICE Futures Singapore and the clearing house, ICE Clear Singapore. The deal, completed in February 2014 gave ICE a foothold in Asia and made it the first non-Asian exchange to own a clearing house there. 
*April 2014 ICE purchased Algo Technologies Ltd. to use its technology to serve as the new NYSE matching engine.
*August 2014: ICE acquired U.S. patent rights relating to automated trading strategies that make price and trading decisions based on market price information. Speaking on ICE’s Q2 earnings call, CEO Jeffrey Sprecher said the patents would allow the exchange group to more broadly protect its customers, and added that ICE was also developing its own licensing plan. The intellectual property rights cover multiple asset classes traded electronically on exchanges, including futures, options and cash equities. 
*October 7, 2014: ICE acquired SuperDerivatives, an Israeli financial technology group, for about $350m in cash, adding to ICE's clearing, risk management and market data strategy. In addition to data and analytics, SuperDerivatives provides a chat platform similar to the one used on Bloomberg terminals. ICE had been looking to enter the high-tech information terminal space to compete with Bloomberg and other information providers. The acquisition also gives ICE access to the group’s DGX product, which allows traders to access live pricing and news and to analyze theoretical trades before they execute them.
*November 2014: ICE subsidiary NYSE acquired True Office, a compliance education company which provides information on compliance and governance risk compliance in an interactive format. 
*December 3, 2014: ICE completed its strategic investment in the Holland Clearing House, a continental European derivatives clearing house, giving ICE a total of six clearing houses. ABN Amro Clearing retained a minority interest. Holland Clearing House (HCH) was renamed ICE Clear Netherlands and is the primary clearing house for the TOM multi-lateral trading facility. 
*July 2014: ICE sold the NYSE Technologies division, which offered transaction, data and infrastructure and managed services. ICE sold off NYFIX, Metabit and Wombat, the three companies that comprised NYSE Technologies. Wombat was sold to SR Labs while NYFIX and Metabit were sold to ULLINK.
*December 11, 2015: ICE acquired Trayport, an electronic energy trading platform, from BGC Partners and GFI for approximately $650 million, comprising approximately 2.5 million ICE common shares. BGC had acquired Trayport when it bought the company's parent, GFI Group, for $750 million. 
*December 14, 2015: ICE completed its acquisition of Interactive Data Corp. from Silver Lake and Warburg Pincus for $5.2 billion. The deal put ICE into the market for pricing and data on interest rate products and illiquid bonds. Interactive Data is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of ICE.
*March 1, 2016: ICE announced the acquisition of two business data units from McGraw Hill Financial, Standard & Poor's Evaluations, a fixed income evaluation pricing service and Credit Market Analysis, a data provider for OTC markets.
== ICE Group Total Contract Volume ==
Year	Total Annual Volume*	Percent Change
2015	1,1998,810,416 	(-)9.8%
2014	2,276,171,019 	(-)11.0%
2013	2,558,489,589 * 	439.9%
2012	473,895,526 	24.4%
2011	381,097,787 	15.9%
2010	328,946,083 	24.8%
2009	263,582,881 	--
 *2013 volume reflects the acquisition of NYSE-Euronext
==2015==
Exchange 	Volume 	Percent Change
ICE Futures Europe 	901,659,951	(-)3.4%
NYSE Amex 	344,463,910	(-)27.3%
NYSE Arca 	381,515,438	(-)13.1%
ICE Futures U.S. 	365,433,350	0.3%
ICE Futures Canada 	5,720,023 	0.8%
Singapore Mercantile Exchange	17,744 	1263.9%
== ICE Futures, Options & OTC Products ==
=== Agricultural ===
Agricultural contracts traded include: US and UK-based softs contracts: ICE U.S. Coffee "C" Arabica, which is the world's largest coffee futures contract, Robusta Coffee, Cotton No. 2, World Cotton, Cocoa, , Frozen Concentrated Orange juice, ICE Sugar No. 11,ICE Sugar No. 16 and White Sugar.
ICE also offers grains including ICE Canola and several traditional agriculture contracts in corn, wheat and soybeans.
For a full list of energy products on the ICE website, click HERE 
===Credit===
ICE offers Eris Exchange credit index derivatives as cash settled futures with $100,000 notional principal, whose value represents a basket of credit default protection on the entities in the index. These contracts are settled in the ICE Clear Credit clearing facility.
=== Energy, Emissions and Power ===
Nearly half of the world's global crude futures by volume is transacted on the ICE exchange. It currently offers futures and options contracts on coal, crude oil, refined products, electricity, emissions, liquified natural gas, natural gas, natural gas liquids and petrochemicals offered on its ICE Futures US, ICE Futures Europe, ICE Futures Singapore, ICE OTC platform, ICE Endex and Trayport markets.
For a full list of energy products on the ICE website, click HERE 
===Equity Derivatives===
ICE offers equity index and single stock futures including contracts on FTSE indexes, MSCI indexes, Russell Indexes, single stock futures and options and ICE Block contracts.
For a full list of equity derivatives products on the ICE website, click HERE
===FX===
ICE's FX futures are best known for its ICE US Dollar Index. ICE also offers cross currency pairs, and US dollar and euro-based pairs.
For a full list of FX products on the ICE website, click HERE 
===Freight===
ICE offers a number of dry and wet freight futures contracts that cover major shipping routes around the world. 
For a full list of freight products on the ICE website, click HERE 
=== Interest Rates ===
ICE offers a number of short, medium and long interest rate futures, swap notes and Eris branded interest rate futures. Many of its interest rate futures were acquired in the 2013 purchase of NYSE Euronext, which included the London-based derivatives market then known as NYSE Liffe. Those well-traded products, such as the three-month short sterling futures, EURIBOR futures and Long Gilt Futures, were some of the benchmark contracts that were moved over to ICE Futures Europe. 
For a full list of interest rate products on the ICE website, click HERE 
===Metals===
ICE offers a slate of precious and ferrous metals contracts including gold, silver and iron ore. 
For a full list of metals products on the ICE website, click HERE 
===US Environmental===
ICE offers a number of regional emissions futures contracts for carbon markets in California, the Northeast's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Renewable Energy Certificates for New Jersey.
For a full list of US environmental contracts on the ICE website, click HERE 
=== OTC Markets ===
The ICE OTC markets include Credit Default Swaps, Creditex, ICE Swap Trade for bilateral energy contracts and physical energy contracts on the ICE OTC platform for North American natural gas, power and global crude and refined oil products.
Energy
ICE offers approximately 500 OTC energy contracts, with a large portion of the volume occurring in about 70 contracts in North American gas and power and global oil. 
For a full list of Physical OTC energy contracts on the ICE website, click HERE 
For a full list of OTC energy swaps contracts on the ICE website, click HERE 
Credit
ICE offers execution, processing for OTC credit derivatives through its Creditex and ICE Swap Trade, cleared through ICE Clear Europe and ICE Clear Credit. Such trades can be facilitated through ICE Link, an automated workflow and connectivity platform for affirming credit derivatives trades, or post-trade processing.
For a full list of OTC energy swaps contracts on the ICE website, click HERE 
== Key People ==
*Jeffrey Sprecher, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer
*Charles Vice, President, Chief Operating Officer
*Scott Hill, Chief Financial Officer
*David Goone, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategic Officer
*Johnathan Short, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
*Thomas W. Farley, President, NYSE Group
*Stacey Cunningham, Chief Operating Officer NYSE Group
*Ben Jackson, Chief Commercial Officer
*Lynn Martin, President and COO of ICE Data Services
*Trabue Bland, President of ICE Futures US
*David J. Peniket, President, Chief Operating Officer, ICE Futures Europe
*Brad Vannan, President , Chief Operating Officer ICE Futures Canada
*Thomas Hammond, President, ICE Clear US
*Paul Swann, President, Chief Operating Officer, ICE Clear Europe
*Christopher S. Edmonds, Senior Vice President, Financial Markets
*Finbarr Hutcheson, ICE Benchmark Administration
*Bruce Tupper, President, ICE Trade Vault
*Kelly Loeffler, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications and Investor Relations
*Stanislav Ivanov, President, ICE Clear Credit & TCC
==Corporate Governance==
The following individuals are members of ICE's board of directors:
*Jeffrey C. Sprecher
*Charles Crisp
*Jean-Marc Forneri
*Fred Hatfield
*Sylvain Hefes
*Terrence F. Martell Ph.D.
*Sir Callum McCarthy
*James McNulty
*Sir Robert Reid
*Frederic V. Salerno
*Robert Scott
*Judith Sprieser
*Vincent Tese
== Annual Reports ==
*ICE 2015 Annual Report (No title)
*ICE 2014 Annual Report (No title)
*ICE 2013 Annual Report (No title)
*ICE 2012 Annual Report (No title)
*ICE 2011 Annual Report Titled: "Growth 
*ICE 2010 Annual Report Titled "Always Ahead"
*ICE 2009 Annual Report (No title)
*ICE 2008 Annual Report Titled: "Global Markets In Clear View"
*ICE 2007 Annual Report Title: "Open To Change"
*ICE 2006 Annual Report Title: "Never Satisfied"
*ICE 2005 Annual Report
== References ==
== Resources ==
*ICE Web site: www.theice.com
*Creditex web site: www.creditex.com
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