Intercontinental Exchange, a provider of fintech and data for global markets, agreed to acquire MarketAxess Holdings, a fixed-income platform.

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“Together with ICE’s established retail and wealth focused bond trading franchise, deep data and analytics capabilities, and global index business, the combined platform will serve every segment of the fixed income market through a single, unified ecosystem,” according to a press release.

“What makes this combination so compelling is the complementary strengths each company brings,” MarketAxess CEO Chris Concannon said in the release. “MarketAxess contributes a leading fixed-income trading network and deep market expertise, while ICE brings additional retail and wealth trading protocols, strong data, connectivity, and a broader set of product capabilities. Together, we will have the scale to invest more deeply in the areas that matter most to our customers.”

Both companies’ boards approved the acquisition, which involves ICE purchasing all outstanding shares of MarketAxess for $167 per share in cash, giving ICE an equity value of approximately $6 billion and a total enterprise value of approximately $5.7 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027.

The acquisition will help ICE to develop a more complete fixed income marketplace, enhance its client experience and improve upon ICE’s data and analytics capabilities.

“This transaction exemplifies the discipline and long-term perspective that define how ICE approaches capital allocation,” ICE Chief Financial Officer Warren Gardiner said in the release. “We are confident the combination will generate substantial long-term value for ICE shareholders.”

This deal “speaks to the maturity of electronic trading,” Coalition Greenwich head of market structure and technology Kevin McPartland said. “The market continues to be so competitive and all of the players have been so innovative over the last couple of years. This seems like the next logical step, bringing together a couple of good assets effectively under one roof.”

McPartland explained how the acquisition amplifies ICE’s authority in the muni market.

“Both platforms have big muni trading operations,” he said. Muni trading is “a space that is primarily [overseen by] MarketAxess, ICE, TradeWeb and Bloomberg. So, this deal effectively takes two of those and puts them together to create a bigger combined offering.”