Intercontinental Exchange, a leading operator of global exchanges and clearing houses and provider of mortgage technology, data and listing services, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Ellie Mae, the leading cloud-based platform provider for the mortgage finance industry. The transaction with Ellie Mae, a portfolio company of Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity investment firm, values Ellie Mae at approximately $11 billion. The deal, following ICE’s taking a majority stake in MERS in 2016, purchasing the remainder in 2018, and acquiring Simplifile in 2019, establishes ICE, through its growing ICE Mortgage Services network, as the leading provider of end-to-end electronic workflow solutions serving the evolving U.S. residential mortgage industry.
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“The strength of our balance sheet, and the combined cash flows, position this deal to be accretive in the first full year and to meet all of our key strategic and financial acquisition criteria.”
A conference call to review the transaction details will be held on Thursday, August 6, 2020 at 5:00 p.m. ET. Details for the call are included at the end of this announcement.
Ellie Mae, based in Pleasanton, California with approximately 1,700 employees, was founded in 1997 with a mission to automate and digitize the trillion-dollar residential mortgage industry. Through its Digital Lending Platform, Ellie Mae provides technology services to all participants in the mortgage supply chain, including its over 3,000 customers and thousands of partners and investors participating on their open network who provide liquidity to the market. Lenders rely on Ellie Mae to securely manage and facilitate the exchange of data across the ecosystem to enable the origination of mortgages while maintaining strict adherence to various local, state and federal compliance requirements.
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“Twenty years after we founded Intercontinental Exchange to provide a transparent trading platform for the energy industry, and following two decades of providing continued innovation to help customers navigate global markets, we are pleased to announce the acquisition of Ellie Mae, which will help us similarly transform the mortgage marketplace,” said Jeffrey C. Sprecher, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange. “Our planned acquisition represents a one-of-a-kind opportunity to add an extraordinary enterprise with great leadership to our family. It will also enhance ICE’s growth strategy in mortgage technology, with complementary products and a wide array of customers and stakeholders who will benefit from our core and proven expertise in operating networks and marketplaces.”
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