The owner of the New York Stock Exchange is to buy Bank of America’s fixed income indices in a move that mirrors a deal announced this week between the London Stock Exchange and Citigroup.
IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) has entered into a definitive agreement to buy the fixed income index platforms from Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s global research division. The division runs more than 5,000 fixed income, currency and commodity indices against which nearly $1 trillion of assets are valued against every day.
Lynn Martin, president and chief operating officer of ICE Data Services, said that demand for index- ation was rising with the increasing interest in passive investment.
The London Stock Exchange said on Tuesday that it would buy Citigroup’s global bond analytics business for $685 million. The business includes fixed-income indices and platforms that provide additional data on these indices.
ICE said that it expected its deal with Bank of America to close in the second half of the year. The indices would be rebranded as the ICE BofAML indices, and BofAML Global Research FICC indices would become part of ICE Data Services, ICE said. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.