(Previously Ranked 8) In 1997, California power plant developer Jeffrey Sprecher bought Atlanta-based Continental Power Exchange, which he envisioned as an entrée into electronic over-the-counter energy trading. By 2000 it had transformed into IntercontinentalExchange.
Sprecher has never stopped acquiring — most notably, London’s International Petroleum Exchange in 2001, New York Board of Trade in 2007 and credit derivatives brokerage Creditex in 2008 — and today ICE is a major, global force in futures markets. The 55-year-old CEO’s latest deal is an April agreement to buy emissions-markets operator Climate Exchange for $600 million.Intent on enhancing transparency and reducing risks in OTC trading — a strategy on which Sprecher had embarked in anticipation of the regulatory pressure on credit default swaps — ICE beat CME Group and other rivals into CDS clearing, where, Sprecher boasted recently, “We remain the leader over a year later.”
He says:“We are adding new products, adding new buy- and sell-side customers and enhancing the range of services within a cleared environment. With global financial reform on the horizon, we are supporting the transition of previously opaque markets to a cleared, transparent environment.”
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