Intercontinental Exchange To Buy TMC Bonds For $685m

Global exchanges operator Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has agreed to acquire premier fixed income marketplace, TMC Bonds, for $685m in cash.

Founded in 2000, TMC Bonds supports anonymous trading across multiple protocols, including click-to-trade and request-for-quote (RFQ) in various asset classes such as municipals, corporates, treasuries, agencies and certificates of deposit.

TMC has classified its clients into three major segments, including institutional customers, interdealers and proprietary traders, and retail brokerage customers.

The firm operates Trader Workstation, which enables to regularly trade with around 5,000 unique traders and portfolio managers.

Trader Workstation is a source for real-time market data, pre-trade compliance/transparency tools, price discovery and up-market corporate bond trading applications.

Additionally, Trader Workstation also supports liaison traders to manage orders from financial advisors who use the firm’s private label workstation.

Subject to customary regulatory and anti-trust approvals, the deal is expected to complete in the second half of this year.

ICE president Benjamin Jackson said: “TMC Bonds will offer a new and complementary access point to liquidity for our customers and expand our portfolio of diverse solutions in the global fixed income markets across analytics, execution and post-trade.

“As the fixed income markets continue to automate and migrate to electronic trading, ICE’s trading and data infrastructure offer customers more choices to access liquidity, conduct price discovery and manage risk in more efficient ways.”

In April this year, Intercontinental Exchange agreed to acquire Chicago Stock Exchange (CHX) for an undisclosed sum.

CE, which is a parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), manages exchanges and clearing houses, as well as provides information services.

CHX is a full-service stock exchange that provides trading, data and corporate listings services. It is an integral part of the National Market System, and competes with all US equity markets.

The exchange helps to transact business in virtually all equity securities traded on NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ, or other national securities exchange.

Image: Intercontinental Exchange has agreed to acquire premier fixed income marketplace, TMC Bonds. Photo: courtesy of  bluebay / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.