(RTTNews) – Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) announced a definitive agreement to acquire MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (MKTX), an electronic trading platform for global institutional fixed income markets. ICE will acquire all outstanding shares of MarketAxess for $167 per share in cash, representing an equity value of approximately $6.0 billion and a total enterprise value of approximately $5.7 billion. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to adjusted EPS in the first full year following close.
MarketAxess connects approximately 2,100 institutional investors and broker-dealers across more than 90 countries, enabling electronic trading in corporate bonds, municipal bonds, emerging market debt, Eurobonds, U.S. Treasuries, and other fixed income instruments.
In pre-market trading on NasdaqGS, MarketAxess shares are up 29.84 percent to $163.25.
