Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. ICE

The business

Three things under one roof. Exchanges is the futures complex in energy and interest rates plus the New York Stock Exchange, and it is two thirds of revenue. Fixed Income and Data Services sells bond pricing, indices and the analytics that go with them. Mortgage Technology is Encompass, the loan origination software that a large share of American mortgages are written on.

Jeff Sprecher has built this by acquisition for twenty-five years, and the pattern is consistent: buy the infrastructure other people depend on, own the data exhaust, sell it back as a subscription. MarketAxess, an electronic bond marketplace, is the same idea applied to the one asset class ICE does not yet dominate.