Friday, April 30, 2010

Al Gore, Score!: InterContinental Exchange, Inc. Buying Climate Exchange PLC (CLE.L; ICE; GS)

CLE is trading up 54% at 743.50. ICE is also up in early premarket action.
Mr. Gore's Generation Investment Management owns just under 3% of CLE.
At one point Goldman owned 19% of CLE. I don't know why they aren't listed, more later.
Here's the list of the top ten holders:

Shares in Issue - 47,592,023 Shares not in public hands is 64.42%

Top 10 Shareholders

as at 29 January 2010

Invesco Asset Management Limited 29.75%
Directors and Related 15.70%
BlackRock Advisors 8.64%
Intercontinental Exchange 4.79%
Generation Investment Management LLP 2.98%
Fidelity (Institutional Group) 2.63%
William Blair & Company, LLC 2.45%
Deutsche Wertpapierservice Bank Ag - Custodian 2.33%
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board 2.11%
Jupiter Asset Management Ltd 1.29%

We'll have more on who benefits from the transaction later today. For now here are some of our posts on CLE and it's subsidiary, Chicago Climate Exchange:

Richard Sandor, Barack Obama and the Founding of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CLE.L)
Meet The Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee (EEMAC)

Carbon Trading: How to (Maybe) Make Money Out of Thin Air: And One of my Favorite Carbon Cowboy Quotes

From the Financial Times:

ICE snaps up Climate Exchange for £395m

Climate Exchange, the UK-listed operator of US and European carbon emissions trading platforms, was on Friday set to be snapped up by IntercontinentalExchange after its board recommended a cash offer from the US exchange operator valuing the group at £395m ($604m).

The move puts the spotlight on a company that has grown from modest beginnings as the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCE) to become the world’s largest operator of carbon emissions with a UK listing.

For IntercontinentalExchange, also known as ICE, the purchase marks a bold move into emissions trading after a string of acquisitions that have built the business into one of the world’s largest energy and commodity trading business in only a decade since the company was formed.

ICE’s last strike on a London-based business was in 2001, when it bought the International Petroleum Exchange, home to the world’s trading in Brent crude oil.

ICE also operates regulated exchanges, over-the-counter (OTC) trading platforms and clearing houses that handle markets for agricultural, credit, currency, emissions, energy and equity index markets.

The purchase of Climate Exchange comes almost a year after ICE bought a 4.8 per cent stake in the business at 644p a share. Friday’s offer was at 750p a share. Analysts at KBC Peel Hunt said: “It has long been obvious that CLE would fit attractively into ICE’s portfolio.”

Climate Exchange has three main businesses: European Climate Exchange, which trades certificates for mandatory European Emissions Trading Scheme; Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), which operates the world’s first voluntary cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions reductions; and the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange, a regulated exchange in the US for environmental futures contracts.

CCX was founded in 2001 by Richard Sandor, a former economist at the Chicago Board of Trade credited with pioneering the cap-and-trade business in the US and later abroad.

Jeff Sprecher, ICE chief executive and founder, said: “The combination of Climate Exchange’s emissions markets and ICE’s futures and OTC energy markets is an important and logical strategic combination for our customers and shareholders.

“The leadership that Climate Exchange has shown in establishing market standards in Europe, and increasingly the US and Asia, has driven its success and we see continued growth opportunities within these nascent markets globally,” Mr Sprecher said.

KBC Peel Hunt said ICE had “timed its deal cleverly”.

“Carbon trading volumes in Europe have hit a new monthly high on carbon prices at last on the move. Sentiment over the US introducing cap-and-trade had just been hit,” the broker said.