(Reuters) – Intercontinental Exchange Inc, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, on Thursday reported that its second-quarter profit more than doubled, helped by the strong performance of its mortgage technology business.
Revenue at the mortgage tech unit came in at $340 million, up sixfold from the year-ago period as the exchange operator continued to benefit from its $11 billion acquisition of Ellie Mae, with the housing market booming amid rock-bottom interest rates coming out of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re looking at taking this unprecedented time of volumes that the industry has seen last year and this year to purposely engage with our customers on opportunities to increase the amount of subscription revenue that we have and some of the services that we provide,” said ICE President Benjamin Jackson.
Some of those services include loan originations as well as mortgage data and analytics, he said on a call with analysts.
Net income attributable to ICE more than doubled to $1.25 billion, or $2.22 per share, for the three months ended June 30, from $523 million, or 95 cents per share, a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, the exchange operator posted a profit of $1.16 per share, in line with consensus Wall Street estimates, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
ICE sold a minority stake in cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase for more than $1.2 billion in April.
The Atlanta-based company also said it is in the early stages of exploring a sale of its stake in Euroclear, Europe’s biggest settlement house for securities, as it seeks to reduce its leverage following the Ellie Mae acquisition. ICE paid 275 million euros ($327 million) for the stake in October 2017.
Total revenue, excluding transaction-based expenses, rose 22% to $1.71 billion.
ICE shares were down 0.6% at $120.62 in early trading.
(This story refiles change day of week in first paragraph to Thursday)
(Reporting by John McCrank in New York and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni, Arun Koyyur and Marguerita Choy)
