Confirms to be acquired by CME for £10/shr in cash and stock valued at £3.9B
- Produces $200 million in run-rate cost synergies annually by end of 2021.
CME Group Inc. (Nasdaq: CME) and NEX Group plc (NXG.L) today announced that they have reached an agreement in which CME Group will acquire NEX in a transaction valued at £10 per share, consisting of 500 pence in cash and 0.0444 CME Group shares (based on CME's closing share price of US$158.84 on March 28, 2018 and the exchange rate of US$1.4101:£1, on March 28, 2018). The proposed transaction has been approved unanimously by the board of directors of both companies and is expected to close, pending approvals by regulators and NEX shareholders, in the second half of 2018.
This acquisition brings together two trading-industry trailblazers to create a leading, client-centric, global markets company that will deliver better ways to trade and manage risk across futures, cash and OTC products.
Combining NEX's leading electronic FX and fixed income cash execution platforms with CME Group will improve trading technology and streamline access by reducing the number of touchpoints that clients need to trade across products. In addition, NEX's premier OTC post-trade products and services complement CME Group's derivatives clearing services. Combining these solutions will strengthen the NEX compression, reconciliation and processing businesses. The combination will also facilitate the development of innovative post-trade services and data offerings to further enhance cost-effective trading and risk management.
Terms of the Transaction
- NEX shareholders will be entitled to receive, for each NEX share: 500 pence in cash and 0.0444 shares of CME Group Class A common stock. - The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to adjusted cash earnings per share, with run-rate cost synergies of $200 million annually by the end of 2021, assuming deal completion in 2018.