ICE Clear Europe Marks One Year Anniversary; New Contracts, Real-Time Risk Management, CDS Clearing Contribute to 'Best Innovation' Designation

November 3, 2009 7:45 AM EST

LONDON, Nov. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IntercontinentalExchange (NYSE: ICE), a leading operator of regulated global futures exchanges, clearing houses and over-the-counter (OTC) markets, today marked the one-year anniversary of the launch of ICE Clear Europe. Based in London, ICE Clear Europe launched on November 3, 2008, amid crisis in financial markets worldwide and during a period of significant demand for additional central clearing services.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090727/CL51999LOGO )

ICE Clear Europe ensures the integrity of trades in ICE's futures and over-the-counter (OTC) markets for energy and credit derivatives by eliminating counterparty and credit risk among market participants. Through leading edge technology, risk management systems and extensive default protections, ICE Clear Europe supports the needs of its clearing members and global market participants. The clearing house introduced cleared credit derivatives in July of 2009, demonstrating its flexibility to offer clearing services for an expanded range of asset classes.

"The successful launch of ICE Clear Europe just six weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers illustrates the demand for, and benefits of, centralized clearing services in an expanded range of products and markets," said Paul Swann, President of ICE Clear Europe. "We are grateful to our members for their continued support, and we look forward to working with participants as we continue to expand our services to meet the dynamic requirements of our customers."

"The growth of ICE's global energy OTC and futures markets following the launch of ICE Clear Europe has exceeded our expectations, particularly considering the challenges brought about by a highly volatile and uncertain financial market environment," said Jeffrey C. Sprecher, ICE Chairman and CEO. "Our vision for investing in central clearing has not only supported growth in our business, but also significant risk management enhancements to mitigate systemic risk."

ICE Clear Europe Year One Achievements

Key Statistics

    --  Successfully transferred 28.5 million contracts sides to ICE Clear
        Europe on 3 November 2008, together with associated margin of
        approximately $16.5 billion. ICE Clear Europe launched with 44 member
        firms.

    --  Guaranty fund of $650 million for energy clearing with additional powers
        of assessment resulting in total default protections of nearly $2
        billion; and a separate guaranty fund of over $500 million for credit
        default swaps (CDS) clearing.

    --  ICE Clear Europe offers clearing services for over 240 contracts and
        clears contracts with a notional value of approximately $40 billion on a
        daily basis.

    --  Recognized for "Best Innovation by a Clearing House, Europe, Middle East
        and Africa" by FOW, a leading global derivatives publication.

Increased Product Range

    --  Since the launch of ICE Clear Europe, ICE has introduced 150 cleared OTC
        and exchange-traded energy contracts resulting in enhanced risk
        management tools for market participants.

Industry Leading Risk Management Regime

    --  In July 2009, ICE Clear Europe introduced an intraday risk management
        methodology based on real-time price and trade feeds from ICE's energy
        markets.  The methodology provides calculations of initial margin,
        realized and unrealized variation margin, and fully revalues all
        positions throughout the day. This methodology also provides the
        clearing house and all clearing members with trade, position, profit and
        loss and margin reports every five minutes, thereby substantially
        reducing intraday price risk.

Operational Process Improvements

    --  ICE Clear Europe has provided clearing members with a range of
        operational benefits, including the ability to directly administer
        misallocated trades and position transfers and electronic cash and
        collateral management systems;

    --  Other operational enhancements include support for daily emissions
        futures contracts and the administration of record deliveries in all
        physically-delivered ICE Futures Europe contracts.

Clearing for OTC Credit Derivatives

    --  On 27 July, ICE Clear Europe launched a separate clearing solution for
        the European CDS market. As of 31 October, ICE Clear Europe's CDS
        clearing house had 11 clearing members and cleared euro 631 billion in
        notional value across 11,886 European index transactions, resulting in
        open interest of euro 67.5 billion.

Additional information about ICE Clear Europe is available at https://www.theice.com/clear_europe.jhtml.

A full list of ICE Clear Europe clearing members, is available at https://www.theice.com/clear_europe_membership.jhtml.

About IntercontinentalExchange

IntercontinentalExchange® (NYSE: ICE) operates leading regulated exchanges, trading platforms and clearing houses serving the global markets for agricultural, credit, currency, emissions, energy and equity index markets. ICE Futures Europe® hosts trade in half of the world's crude and refined oil futures. ICE Futures U.S.® and ICE Futures Canada® list agricultural, currency and Russell Index markets. ICE® offers trade execution and processing for the credit derivatives markets through Creditex® and ICE Link(TM), respectively, and CDS clearing through ICE Trust(TM). A component of the Russell 1000® and S&P 500 indexes, ICE serves customers in more than 50 countries and is headquartered in Atlanta, with offices in New York, London, Chicago, Winnipeg, Calgary, Houston and Singapore. www.theice.com

The following are trademarks of IntercontinentalExchange, Inc. and/or its affiliated companies: IntercontinentalExchange, IntercontinentalExchange & Design, ICE, ICE and block design, ICE Futures Canada, ICE Futures Europe, ICE Futures U.S., ICE Trust, ICE Clear Europe, ICE Clear U.S., ICE Clear Canada, The Clearing Corporation, U.S. Dollar Index, ICE Link and Creditex. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. For more information regarding registered trademarks owned by IntercontinentalExchange, Inc. and/or its affiliated companies, see https://www.theice.com/terms.jhtml

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 - Statements in this press release regarding IntercontinentalExchange's business that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of additional risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see ICE's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, including, but not limited to, the risk factors in ICE's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008, as filed with the SEC on February 11, 2009.

SOURCE IntercontinentalExchange

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