The Mortgage Exchange: ICE Revisited
Plus: European Deposit Insurance Scheme, Private Equity Fundraisings, Stripe/Plaid
One of the first company briefings I published in Net Interest, back in August 2020, was on The Intercontinental Exchange, otherwise known as ICE. It’s a fascinating company. Launched as an energy trading platform in 2000, it expanded into other segments across the trading value chain to become one of the largest commodity exchanges globally. Not content with just trading energy, its founder and CEO, Jeff Sprecher, pushed into other areas. He bought the New York Stock Exchange to gain exposure to equities, he acquired numerous data companies, he even tried to buy eBay.
More recently, he’s had his eye on the mortgage industry. At the time of my first briefing, Sprecher had just announced the acquisition of Ellie Mae, a residential mortgage software provider. This week, he doubled down on mortgage, announcing his largest acquisition to date, of Black Knight Inc.
As we highlighted in the earlier piece, it’s not obvious why an exchange should enter the mortgage market. Squint a bit though,…