Intercontinental Exchange Chairman and CEO Jeff Sprecher spoke with FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Maria Bartiromo during Opening Bell with Maria Bartiromo about the European Central Bank (ECB) to cut interest rates. Sprecher said, “We have a lot of European business and one of the things that we are seeing is money move into Europe.” Sprecher also discussed the Alibaba IPO saying, it “could be the largest IPO in the history of public markets.” Sprecher went on to say, that the Alibaba team is “an exciting group of people and would love to have them as a partner.” Sprecher said, “I hope that we will be able to convince the Alibaba management team to join us.” When asked about acquired the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Sprecher said, “We took on a lot of debt in order to acquire the New York Stock Exchange and its related businesses” and that “we are going to be paying down that debt hopefully very quickly.”
Excerpts from the report are below.
On whether he is happy with the ECB moves:
“We have a lot of European business and one of the things that we are seeing is money move into Europe. There is a sense that that maybe European companies for example are undervalued relative to the rest of the world and so while it’s easy to talk about the negative problems - the head winds that face Europe, the reality is investors want to be in front of the trends and interestingly we’re seeing money go into Europe right now, which is helping our European Exchanges which are known as Euronext.”
On whether Alibaba will list on the NYSE:
“Well I can’t talk about it, but certainly it’s an amazing company. It’s one that I have a lot of empathy for. I’m the founder of ICE and it has grown quickly and so when I meet other entrepreneurs that have built in their case a really amazing company, which could be the largest IPO in the history of public markets. You know, it’s an exciting group of people and would love to have them as a partner. We’ll see where they end up, but my company, the New York Stock Exchange is quite good at managing very large global capital raises. That’s what we’re there for. That’s what we do every day and I hope that we will be able to convince the Alibaba management team to join us.”
On whether he will find out soon if Alibaba will list on the NYSE:
“Let’s hope so.”
On the cash the Intercontinental Exchange is generating:
“We took on a lot of debt in order to acquire the New York Stock Exchange and its related businesses, so we are going to be paying down that debt hopefully very quickly and then we are going to be in a great position to begin to return capital to shareholders. A lot of my long time shareholders are quiet anxious for this. They have been waiting for us to become this cash generative and so it is an interesting and exciting time to be managing my business right now.”
On market structure:
“Well I think the U.S. equity markets are too fragmented and I think part of the issues that people are concerned about is this extreme fragmentation, so it’s good when it starts to come back together. I hope that is a trend that will continue. We own, the New York Stock Exchange is actually five exchanges. We own two equity options exchanges and three equity exchanges under the NYSE umbrella. And I would like to be able to consolidate my own businesses just to make them easier and simpler and more fair and bring back market confidence to people who want to own stocks.”
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