In May 2000, IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) was established, with its founding shareholders representing some of the world's largest energy companies and global banks.
ICE's mission was to transform OTC energy markets by providing an open, accessible, around-the-clock electronic energy marketplace to a previously fragmented and opaque market. ICE offered the energy community price transparency, more efficiency, greater liquidity and lower costs than manual trading, such as voice or floor markets.
Working together with participants in the energy markets, ICE developed the leading electronic marketplace for energy commodities, along with the leading electronic trade confirmation platform.
ICE Data was launched in 2002 to meet the demand for increased market data in the OTC energy markets, and is today one of the leading providers globally. ICE has developed and maintained its state-of-the-art technology infrastructure for trading, trade processing, clearing, market data and risk management, investing over $120 million in technology since inception.
In June 2001, ICE expanded its business into the futures markets by acquiring the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), now ICE Futures Europe, Europe's leading regulated energy futures exchange. ICE Futures Europe's markets today account for approximately 50% of the world's crude oil and refined futures traded each day.
In April 2005, ICE Futures Europe became the first fully electronic energy exchange.
Since 2003, ICE has partnered with the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) to host its OTC emissions markets, and today offers the leading European emissions futures in conjunction with the European Climate Exchange (ECX) ¿ the ICE/ECX carbon futures contracts are the most widely relied upon carbon contracts globally.
In November 2005, ICE completed its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker ICE. Today, ICE is a member of the Russell 1000® and the S&P 500 indexes. In 2006, The Wall Street Journal recognized ICE as the best performing stock of all publicly traded U.S. stocks.
In January 2007, ICE acquired the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) now known as ICE Futures U.S. Today, its futures contracts for soft commodities, including sugar and coffee are listed on the ICE platform.
In June 2007, ICE and Russell Investments entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with respect to the U.S. Russell Index futures complex, and today Russell Index futures trade exclusively on ICE.
Also in 2007, ICE acquired the exclusive right to key natural gas indexes, including NGI and NGX, and transitioned them to electronic markets on ICE's OTC platform.
In July 2007, ICE acquired and integrated ChemConnect's natural gas liquids (NGLs) and chemicals markets into its OTC markets.
In September 2007, ICE acquired the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange (WCE), the world's leading canola market, now known as ICE Futures Canada.
In October 2007, ICE acquired Chatham Energy, a leading OTC energy options broker.
In January 2008, ICE acquired YellowJacket (YJ), a leading peer-to-peer negotiation platform for the OTC energy options markets.
In August 2008, ICE completed its acquistion of Creditex, a leading interdealer market for the execution and processing of credit derivatives with operations in New York, London and Singapore.
In March 2009, ICE acquired The Clearing Corporation (TCC), which provides the clearing technology for ICE's credit default swap clearing house, known as "ICE Trust."
Approved by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in March 2009, ICE Trust, is a member of the Federal Reserve and is a New York bank holding company and is the leading CDS clearing house globally.
Today, ICE employs over 750 professionals across the U.S., Europe and Asia.
As you said, they have been very ambitious and have expanded greatly since their inception in 2000. All the more reason why I want to know who provided their initial capitalization. Who were those initial investors? That is a question to which I want an answer.