Intercontinental Exchange to buy Interactive Data for $5.2B

Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE) today struck a deal to buy financial data firm Interactive Data Corp (IDC) from private equity firms Silver Lake and Warburg Pincus in a $5.2-billion deal.

The deal with ICE is made up of $3.65 billion in cash and $1.55 billion in shares. “IDC is thrilled about its future with ICE, and its continued leadership in financial data services”.

ICE, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, noted that the acquisition of Interactive Data will help build on ICE’s market data business by expanding the markets served, adding technology platforms, and increasing new data and valuation services.

“This transaction furthers our expansion into meeting the financial information needs of our market participants globally”, said ICE chairman and chief executive Jeffrey Sprecher in a statement. It seems like certain events between July and October may have ushered Warburg Pincus and Silver Lake to sell IDC instead to ICE.

Stephen Daffron, boss of IDC, said the sale would provide his firm with “the long-term capital, strategic support and collective set of relationships to further grow our company and evolve our platform in the rapidly-changing capital markets landscape”.

In 2014, IDC reported revenue for the year at $939.2 million and a loss of $36 million.

ICE shares slipped $2.20 to $246.60 in morning trading Monday.

The exchange operator said it expected cost synergies of $150 million, which will be largely completed within three years. The company also expects adjusted earnings accretion of about 5 percent in the first year post-closing, excluding deal-related amortization.