Intercontinental Exchange has reported financial results for Q1 2018 that include net income of $464 million on $1.2 billion of consolidated revenues less transaction-based expenses.
The operator of global exchanges and clearing houses and provider of data and listing services reported an adjusted net income of $525 million in Q1 and a record adjusted diluted EPS of $0.90, up 22% year-over-year.
Jeffrey C. Sprecher, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ICE, commented:
“We are pleased to report on our first quarter performance, delivering strong results across our trading and clearing and our data and listings segments including record revenues. We completed our strategic acquisition of BondPoint while also generating solid organic growth, as customers’ demand of our comprehensive suite of multi-asset class workflow and risk management solutions continues to increase.”
Scott A. Hill, Chief Financial Officer at ICE, added:
“Our first quarter performance produced revenue growth, margin expansion and strong cash flow allowing us to return nearly $540 million to stockholders through April, up 28% compared to the prior year. 2018 is off to a promising start and we are well positioned to build on our proven track record of growth, customer service and value creation for our stockholders.”
The company added that its unrestricted cash was $523 million and outstanding debt was $6.9 billion as of March 31, 2018.
By operation, ICE’s trading and clearing segment revenues, less transaction-based expenses, were $596 million, up 11% YoY. The data and listings segment had revenues of $629 million (data services revenues of $520 million and listings revenues of $109 million).
The company expects to see GAAP operating expenses between $570 million to $580 million in Q2 2018, with adjusted operating expenses around $500 million and $510 million.
Regarding full year 2018 GAAP, ICE expects operating expenses in a range of $2.28 billion to $2.32 billion and adjusted operating expenses around $2.00 billion.
The strategic acquisition of BondPoint consisted of a $400 million buyout from Virtu Financial, the net after-tax proceeds of which were used to repay a portion of Virtu’s outstanding term loan. BondPoint provides electronic fixed income trading solutions for the buy-side and sell-side offering access to centralized liquidity and automated trade execution services through its ATS linking more than 500 financial services firms.
In July 2017, ICE acquired the remaining 20% stake of ICE Endex shares from N.V., turning the firm into a fully owned subsidiary of ICE.
Recently, ICE Data Services partnered with Blockstream to launch the Cryptocurrency Data Feed, which offers real-time cryptocurrency information, including data from more than 15 cryptocurrency exchange venues globally.
