Oct. 12, 2006, 5:08PM
Nymex Shareholders Approve IPO, Listing
Associated Press
NEW YORK Shareholders of the New York Mercantile Exchange Thursday voted overwhelmingly to go ahead with an initial public offering and publicly list the 134-year-old bourse's parent company Nymex Holdings Inc.
More than 91 percent of the shares voted at a special meeting were in favor of the initial public offering, said Nymex, the world's biggest commodity futures exchange for physically-delivered products, which include oil, natural gas, gold, silver and copper.
The initial public offering, aimed to be completed by the end of the year, comes amid a surge of fund interest in energy trading and the rise of electronic platform IntercontinentalExchange Inc.
Prospects for the IPO have been boosted by the successful introduction of simultaneous electronic and floor trading of Nymex's benchmark crude contract and a deal to do the same with metals traded on Nymex's Comex division.
The next step for Nymex is to go on a roadshow to sell the IPO to potential investors. Nymex hasn't announced when it plans to list, but under a deal with 10 percent stakeholder General Atlantic LLC, seatholders will get $10 million if the IPO is finished this year.
"The ability of Nymex to complete its initial public offering is subject to the satisfaction of several conditions, including favorable market conditions and receipt of the requisite approval from regulatory agencies," Nymex said.
JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch & Co. are the joint managers of the IPO and Bank of America Securities LLC, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers and Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP are co-managers.
Nymex is looking to raise only a fraction of its probable market value first up. The exchange hasn't nailed down exactly how much it will chase, but in July it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission its intention to sell up to $250 million of common stock in the IPO.
One measure of the exchange's value is the amount one of the 816 seats, bundled with 90,000 shares, are sold for. The last sale, on Thursday, was for $5.25 million, which would value the exchange at $4.28 billion. ICE's market value is about $5 billion.
Nymex said in its SEC filings that the IPO will let the company raise funds and "provide increased flexibility in a marketplace in which a number of our current and potential competitors are or will be publicly held companies."
Nymex Shareholders Approve IPO, Listing
Associated Press
NEW YORK Shareholders of the New York Mercantile Exchange Thursday voted overwhelmingly to go ahead with an initial public offering and publicly list the 134-year-old bourse's parent company Nymex Holdings Inc.
More than 91 percent of the shares voted at a special meeting were in favor of the initial public offering, said Nymex, the world's biggest commodity futures exchange for physically-delivered products, which include oil, natural gas, gold, silver and copper.
The initial public offering, aimed to be completed by the end of the year, comes amid a surge of fund interest in energy trading and the rise of electronic platform IntercontinentalExchange Inc.
Prospects for the IPO have been boosted by the successful introduction of simultaneous electronic and floor trading of Nymex's benchmark crude contract and a deal to do the same with metals traded on Nymex's Comex division.
The next step for Nymex is to go on a roadshow to sell the IPO to potential investors. Nymex hasn't announced when it plans to list, but under a deal with 10 percent stakeholder General Atlantic LLC, seatholders will get $10 million if the IPO is finished this year.
"The ability of Nymex to complete its initial public offering is subject to the satisfaction of several conditions, including favorable market conditions and receipt of the requisite approval from regulatory agencies," Nymex said.
JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch & Co. are the joint managers of the IPO and Bank of America Securities LLC, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers and Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP are co-managers.
Nymex is looking to raise only a fraction of its probable market value first up. The exchange hasn't nailed down exactly how much it will chase, but in July it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission its intention to sell up to $250 million of common stock in the IPO.
One measure of the exchange's value is the amount one of the 816 seats, bundled with 90,000 shares, are sold for. The last sale, on Thursday, was for $5.25 million, which would value the exchange at $4.28 billion. ICE's market value is about $5 billion.
Nymex said in its SEC filings that the IPO will let the company raise funds and "provide increased flexibility in a marketplace in which a number of our current and potential competitors are or will be publicly held companies."
