Businessweek

ts include representatives from segments of the underlying industries served by its energy markets, including the oil, gas, and power industries. Participants trade in its energy futures markets, either directly as members or through an ICE Futures Europe member, or an ICE Futures U.S. member. ICE Futures Europe offers its screens for electronic trading in 60 jurisdictions. Memberships in the company’s energy futures markets totaled 174 member firms as of December 31, 2012. Energy participants include various major energy companies, financial institutions, and other active participants in the global commodities markets. These include oil and gas producers and refiners, power stations and utilities, chemical companies, transportation companies, banks, funds, and other energy market participants. Its participant base is located in 36 countries. Agricultural and Financial Participant Base: The company’s agricultural and financial participants include representatives from segments of the underlying industries served by its agricultural and financial markets, including the sugar, coffee, canola, and cotton industries. Traders in these futures markets include hedgers, speculators, and investors. ICE Futures U.S. offers its screens for electronic trading in 31 jurisdictions. ICE Futures Canada could offer its screens in 18 jurisdictions. Credit Participant Base: Participants of Creditex’s RealTime electronic CDS trading platform primarily include trading desks at major international financial institutions. Clients of ICE Link’s post-trade affirmation, confirmation, and processing platform include various major CDS market participants on both the buy-side and sell-side, as well as inter-dealer brokers. Participants in the company’s CDS clearing business, ICE Clear Credit, consist of 27 clearing members. ICE Clear Europe has 16 CDS clearing members. Market Data Participant Base: Market data participants include major commodity companies, financial institutions, proprietary trading firms, natural gas distribution companies and utilities, hedge funds, and private investors. The primary customer base for the company’s futures market data are market data redistributors, such as Bloomberg, CQG, Interactive Data Corporation, and Reuters, who redistribute its real-time pricing data and remit to the company a real-time exchange fee based on the user’s access to its data. For both OTC and futures market data, end users include corporate traders, risk managers, individual speculators, consultants, and analysts. Data Centers, Global Network, and Distribution The company offers a hosting center in Illinois and maintains a disaster recovery site for its technology systems in Georgia. It offers access to its electronic markets through a range of interfaces, including dedicated lines, server co-location data centers, telecommunications hubs in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and directly through the Internet. The ICE global network consists of high speed dedicated data lines connecting data hubs in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, London, and Singapore with the exchanges’ and clearing houses’ primary and disaster recovery data centers. The company offers server co-location space at its data centers to all of its customers. Intellectual Property Throughout 2012, the company obtained an additional 26 trademark registrations covering various aspects of its service and product offerings. These additional registrations were issued in multiple jurisdictions, including the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Singapore. The company obtained an additional five patents in 2012. Two patents cover its implied market trading technology; two patents cover its techniques for reducing delta values in connection with online trading of credit derivatives; and the last of the five patents covers its Stradrunner technology, which provides for managing and displaying financial product quotes from multiple sources as a single, ordered display. The company also holds a license and maintenance agreement with SMARTS Market Surveillance PTY Limited to use its real-time market surveillance software to assist in monitoring trading of commodities, futures, and options