Earnings Labs

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE)

Q1 2017 Earnings Call· Wed, May 3, 2017

$156.28

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Intercontinental Exchange First Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kelly Loeffler, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, Marketing, and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kelly Lynn Loeffler - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Good morning. ICE's first quarter 2017 earnings release and presentation can be found in the Investor section of theice.com. These items will be archived and our call will be available for replay. Today's call may contain forward-looking statements. These statements, which we undertake no obligation to update, represent our current judgment and are subject to risks, assumptions and uncertainties. For a description of the risks that could cause our results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, please refer to our 2016 Form 10-K. In our earnings supplements, we refer to certain non-GAAP measures including adjusted income, adjusted operating margin, expenses, EPS, EBITDA, and tax rate. We believe our non-GAAP measures are more reflective of our cash operations and core business performance. You'll find a reconciliation to the equivalent GAAP term in the earnings materials and an explanation of why we deem this information to be meaningful as well as how management uses these measures. When used on this call, net revenue refers to revenue net of transaction-based expenses and adjusted earnings refers to adjusted diluted earnings per share. With us on the call are Jeff Sprecher, Chairman and CEO; Scott Hill, Chief Financial Officer; and Chuck Vice, President and Chief Operating Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Scott.

Scott Anthony Hill - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Kelly. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report on our first quarter results which included solid volume and data revenue growth, continued expense discipline and increased capital returns. I'll start this morning on slide four, which lists some highlights from the quarter. Data revenues grew 6% organically versus the prior year on a constant currency basis and increased sequentially from a strong fourth quarter. This reflects the strategic rationale of building out our data operations to capture our customers' increasing demand for information. In our trading and clearing segment, average daily volume or ADV grew 4% and open interest grew 6%. Growth accelerated further in April and on a year-to-date basis both ADV and open interest are now 9% versus a year ago. Though currency and mix are impacting revenue, these volume and OI trends reflect continued demand for the risk management services our global trading and clearing businesses provide. Next, I want to highlight that the NYSE continues to attract world class companies in a very robust IPO environment. Through April, over 85% all capital raised by the IPOs of U.S. operating companies happened on the NYSE, including five IPOs this past Friday. All of this helped us generate cash flows of $611 million which allowed us to return nearly $350 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends, the second largest quarterly capital return in our company's history. During the quarter, we also continued to refine our portfolio which will sharpen our strategic focus and generate additional cash to support future investments, capital returns and deleveraging. Finally, I want to note that we look forward to seeing many of you at our Investor Day on June 2 where you will have an opportunity to hear from our extended management team.…

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Scott. As you can see, the balance across our transaction and non-transactions segments is complementary, where trading drives data and listings drives trading. This comprehensive model has enabled us to provide a compelling value proposition for customers while steadily growing our cash flow and increasing our capital return. You can see that balance on slide nine with the valuable range of services we provide to support our customers' trading, investing, and risk management activities. We've strategically positioned ICE as the most global exchange operator with half of our profits derived outside the U.S. To achieve this reach, we've built a globally connected network of solutions for our customers, many of whom also operate on a global scale and who rely upon us each day for mission-critical services. Through this network, we deliver a vast range of content that serves our customers across their workflow. We offer a diverse range of products through common technology across our worldwide exchanges and clearinghouses which enables us to scale our offerings into the provision of data services. Because trading, investing and risk management all require an increasing amount of information, we're extremely well positioned to directly serve these growing customer needs. In addition, the predictability of our revenue model is increasing given the growth of our subscription based businesses, which improves our ability to consistently return capital while we invest in growth. Moving to slide 10, we're focused on becoming a global leader in the provision of data services. We've demonstrated our ability to exceed the industry's growth rate by focusing on areas of opportunity as demonstrated by our year-over-year track record of growing data revenues on both an annual and a quarterly basis since 2010. How have we done this? In part, our success is driven by a clear commitment to…

Operator

Operator

We will take our first question from Richard Repetto of Sandler O'Neill. Please go ahead. Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Good morning, Jeff. Good morning, Scott.

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Morning.

Scott Anthony Hill - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Good morning. Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: The first question is on the very popular topic of market data. And I'm just trying to see, Scott, whether the GAAP guidance of 5% growth is still affirmed in market data and it appears that you expect a ramp if currency stayed flat going out to replace the IDMS lost revenue. Is that correct, on a GAAP basis?

Scott Anthony Hill - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

I'm not 100% sure I understood the second part of your question, Rich, but on one of the slides Jeff addressed, we did reiterate that we believe our data business will grow at least 6% for the year. I think that's further supported by the ASV metric, which is up 6%. IDMS and TMX Atrium, the net of those businesses I mentioned would reduce revenues about $12 million a quarter over second quarter, third quarter, and fourth quarter. That notwithstanding, I think what you'll see adjusted for that is we accelerated from the fourth quarter to the first quarter, adjusted for that reduction in that acquired and divested business. We'll see an acceleration into the second quarter, or we would have seen an acceleration. And I would expect we'll see an acceleration into the third and fourth quarter as well. So we're happy with the way the data business is trending and we're happy with the fact that what we're seeing is really solid growth on top of growth in the prior year. So, again, I didn't quite follow the second half of your question. If I didn't answer it, maybe try again. Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Okay. I think that answered it, or I'm sure other people will ask about market data as well. I'll limit myself to one follow-up, though. I guess I've got to ask this, Jeff, I've gotten a handful of emails about this. But there was an article from Bloomberg that came out talking about M&A. I know you don't discuss anything specifically, but I guess the broad question is wouldn't you think that it'd be – in any combination of two major futures exchanges, wouldn't there be antitrust or issues? It's certainly got everybody talking I guess this morning, if you can make any comments.

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Well, I can't. And you graciously prefaced that in the question, so I appreciate that, Rich. You know, let me just say that I think that our company is unique in that we're always looking for ways to grow value for shareholders and we not only buy companies but we buy companies that we think we can grow organically. And we just proved that by the first question that you asked Scott. And we also dispose of companies where we think we're not good operators or where somebody else could do better with the firm than we could. So we're constantly looking at the way we go to market and try to be innovative. We look at deals that other people don't think about. And we're always amused when the market thinks we're going one direction and internally we know that the market is wrong; we're going another direction. So that's just part of the way we think around here, because I'm surrounded by a lot of entrepreneurs, and we're constantly generating new ideas on what to do to best serve customers given the macro trends in our space. So I'll leave it at that, if you don't mind, and let you guys go talking. Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Okay. I'll leave it at that as well, and I'll stay to the one follow-up. Thanks.

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Michael Carrier of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Michael Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

All right. Thanks, guys. Scott, maybe on the transaction side, particularly on that futures business, when we look at the trends, both open interest and ADV, and not just for April but year-to-date, things are looking pretty strong, obviously some tough comps last year. And just wanted to get a sense, obviously, there's some that's environmental, maybe on rate, the rate backdrop in Europe. But it also seems like on the desktop, like your revenue growth is picking up. So just wanted to get some sense on like maybe user growth versus the environment. Because it does seem like there's more going on than just a better environment for some of the products. So any color behind that would be helpful.

Scott Anthony Hill - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Okay. Let me – there's somewhat two questions imbedded in there. Let me touch on kind of the futures business. We are seeing very strong growth. Through yesterday, overall volumes in the quarter are up 24%. In terms of revenue, as you mentioned, it's not only a tough compare, it's also a tough currency environment. And in interest rates in particular with the volatility, the customer mix has impacted rates. But as I step back and look at it, there's no question that we continue to see strong commercial demand around our platform. And that's what's really driving the volumes and, more importantly what's driving the open interest. Open interest up 9% year over year. There's not a better leading indicator for the robustness of the business as we look forward. Again, currency and mix and all the other factors aside, which you can't really control, open interest says that the commercial customers are still really interested in the market. And I'll give you a subset example of that. When I step back and look at the best indicator for our oil markets, to me that's open interest. And our open interest for oil went above 50% share about two years ago, and it stayed there. And again, I think that's an indicator that there's continued interest. Whether oil's moving up above 50 or down towards 50, the commercial customers are in there hedging their risk. So we've definitely seen continued strong growth and customer interest in our markets. And I think that's, as you mentioned, translating over into strength we're seeing in our desktop and connectivity business.

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

I'll mention – the second part of your question, I mentioned in my prepared remarks but I'll elaborate a little bit. The reason that we're focused on the data part of our business is that historically exchanges like ours took data to market by basically wholesaling the data to third-party data vendors, and largely that data went into these large multi-asset class desktops that people were acquiring. Today we're seeing a different trend, which is our customers want more customized applications on their desktop, probably no different than you and I on our smartphone. And we see them taking, for example, MarketAxess screens for their bond business, FactSet screens for their equity business, Aladdin screens for risk management, and ICE screens for commodities. And so the nature of the desktop is changing to more tailored, bespoke, customized, targeted solutions. And the data that's underlying that, many people want it on a pipe. In other words, they want just to buy the direct feed from us so that they can customize and power the way that individual people in their operations are accessing data, using new algorithms, new risk management tools and alike that people are using to get an edge for trading and risk management, and also to be responsive to compliance. Just one other comment I'll make to elaborate on what Scott said about our interest rate business. What's been very amazing for us to watch is that our European interest rate business has been more responsive it seems to U.S. Fed actions than the U.S. interest rate complex. So in other words, the market is watching what the U.S. central bank does and is then imposing what the results of that are on Europe and abroad and reacting to that, and we see risk management being done in our market. So it's been an interesting suite of products to own where it's not necessarily directly correlated to what the ECB and the Bank of England do.

Michael Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay. And then just quick follow-up. Scott, just on the capital management, an active quarter when we look at buybacks data (32:00) and the dividend. Just any sense on what you think going forward in terms of priorities, whether it's given where the stock is, given the M&A environment out there, just any color?

Scott Anthony Hill - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

I don't think it's really changed from our comments previously. As you probably noticed, we actually ended up spending more in the first quarter than we had originally indicated. We had said $200 million, we spent $230 million, and that did have to do with, as you say, our view on the stock price. You may recall that early in the quarter it was languishing around $57, $58 and we aggressively accelerated. I mentioned that through yesterday we're already at $80 million. We don't really project going forward in terms of what it's likely to be, but if you look at the first quarter and you look at the first third of this quarter, I think that gives you an indication of where we're headed. And I think the good thing is, I mentioned on 16 months past the close of the deal, with the Cetip deal closed, we're effectively at our leverage target. We've returned $900 million. We've shown a preference to share repurchases and that's historically been the case and I would expect it will be the case going forward. But don't miss the fact that the dividend is up 17% year-over-year in the first quarter and that's the, I think, third or fourth consecutive double digit increase since we instituted it. So really no change in terms of capital allocation as I said on the last earnings call. We think we can do strategic bolt-on M&A just as we're doing and continue to be really aggressive on repurchases and effectively return 100% of our free cash flows over the course of this year.

Michael Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Alex Kramm of UBS. Please go ahead.

Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Hey, good morning, everyone. Just wanted to hone in on the market data again, particularly on the exchange data. When you look back 12 months in the second quarter of last year you got a pretty big bump that surprised lot of people. And I think one of the things that happened back then was that on the ICE futures side, some fee waivers expired. If I understand it correctly, there's a second component of that that happened this April. So could you just talk a little bit how what you expect here in the second quarter, how big that bump should be as well on a quarter over quarter basis. And then maybe just in general around exchange data, obviously, some of your competitors showed some weakness, so maybe you can compare and contrast your business there a little bit.

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Yeah, Alex. So, what you're referring to is that we used to have a group of people that got free data from us and we decided to convert everybody to paying customers. And so our customer base, if you will, for the purchase of data dramatically expanded as many of those people that used to get it through various sources for free turned around and signed subscription agreements with us. That is still in the marketplace. It's a broader audience, it gives us more people to sell to and so on and so forth. We haven't touched that program since instituting it a year ago but, as Scott has guided you, we do think that our overall data revenues are going to continue to grow along the way that we've been growing in the first quarter.

Scott Anthony Hill - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Yes, and I think specifically to the last part of your question, our exchange data business was up sequentially from the fourth quarter and we expect it will be it sequentially in the second quarter versus the first quarter. And, as Jeff alluded to, we continue to see more customers looking for different ways to consume more of our data. So we remain very confident in that business. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, 4% to 5% growth for the year on top of 14% growth last year.

Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Great. And then just secondly something small here but, Scott, you had that one-time item in the first quarter here, the accrual for legal things, I believe. I don't know if you touched upon that in your prepared remarks but can you just flesh it out? And importantly, you said it was an ongoing item and it was $10 million this quarter, so just wondering is it something that actually happened in the cost base? Not trying to be too cute here but obviously it's $10 million. It gets you from the high end of your guidance range to the low end in the quarter so I feel like it's obviously important.

Scott Anthony Hill - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Yes. That's an accrual that's an estimate of potential exposure related to certain ongoing legal and regulatory matters. And I can't really say a lot more than that other than pointing out that by the nature of non-GAAP in it, it's our view that that's not a typical charge. And so I don't think it would be appropriate to look at as it's a difference between the high or the low end of our expense range. It's not something you'd put in the run rate moving forward. It's just, you know, as per accounting, when you come to a conclusion that you have an estimate of a potential exposure, you book it, and that's what we did.

Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

But it wasn't – you hadn't had anything related to that previously? So this was completely new, I guess the point.

Scott Anthony Hill - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Yes. Yes, again, which goes to the reason why we non-GAAPed it.

Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

All right. Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Kyle Voigt of KBW. Please go ahead. Kyle Voigt - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Hi. Good morning. I guess one on Europe and Brexit, and I know you made some comments around this in your prepared remarks, but it really seems like the tension continues to build around euro-denominated clearing and whether there's going to be a location requirement here post-Brexit. Am I interpreting your comments correctly that you think there will be an agreement reached there to keep this in the UK longer term? If you could just elaborate on that. And then maybe, secondly, as we think about the impacts to your business, can you just address some of the risks maybe around your IBOR and then some of the opportunities you talked about maybe in the EU post-Brexit.

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Sure. Yeah, I mean I tend to think that markets are rational and so the UK and the EU will end up someplace that works for both parties. And we sit in the UK but the E.U. has an argument that I think has validity, which is that during times of stress, if there's stress on the euro derivatives market and the European Central Bank has to step in and provide liquidity, then it needs some visibility into the market. And so I see the debate that's going on right now is about the role of the ECB and the visibility that it has in these markets. And that, starting at that premise, that is a not irrational view for Europe. The question is how does that manifest itself? Is it an actual physical moving of products? Is it a joint oversight? Is it a college of regulators? There are a number of solutions that I suspect will be teased out during the Brexit negotiations. And I've long said that we have viewed the markets as becoming more fragmented due to the fact that regulators are implementing their version of oversight in different ways with different timetables. And we all went through a global conversion from analog to digital, where we could sit in our living rooms and access the rest of the world, and we're somewhat unimpeded in doing that, and that happened – so the birth of the Internet age. What's happening now is regulation is catching up and wants to have oversight locally. And so it's starting to fragment what we used to enjoy as a holistic market. And we've set the company up specifically for that. So our Netherlands operation, which is located in the EU, has now been converted over to have all ICE technology.…

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Vincent Hung of Autonomous. Please go ahead.

Vincent Hung - Autonomous Research US LP

Analyst

Hi. So data ASV growth was 6% this quarter, looks to have declined versus the 8% in 4Q. Are there some moving parts impact in that? And can you also clarify the definition, if this is just referring to pricing and analytics?

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Yes. So, Vincent, the changed ASV is fairly simple. The ASV measures where we are entering the period this year versus the period last year. Entering the first quarter, the pricing policy changes that we implemented in 2016 were fully baked in. Entering 2016 back in the first quarter, they weren't, because as you know those were implemented in the second quarter. And so there's a bit of an apples and oranges that drove the 8%; that normalizes its way out entering the second quarter. Pricing policy changes were in the base last year, they're in the current year, and so year over year the ASV lines up more closely as you would expect with our expectation on revenue growth for the year. And with regards to your second question, I think what you may be asking is to refresh on what I said with regard to how we're thinking about the organic measure for pricing and analytics. And on that one, and frankly in the second quarter and the third and fourth quarter, we'll likely do a similar thing on desktops and connectivity. What we wanted to do is just give you a view of pricing and analytics, and again in future quarters desktops and connectivity adjusted for the material impact of the Securities Evaluations business, which we didn't own until the fourth quarter last year, and then IDMS business net of TMX Atrium, which really will reduce revenue 2Q through 4Q. So it's our effort to try and give you for each of those line items better visibility into the underlying business growth. I'll note that it's challenging, because the reality is the Securities Evaluations business in the first quarter was better than we expected and better than it was in the fourth quarter. And I would argue that that's largely because of our team and our ownership. That notwithstanding, I'm not trying to parse out which part of it was organic or not. But generally speaking, as we roll forward we'll try and give you that kind of visibility where any particular acquisition or divestiture impacts one of those line items in a material manner.

Vincent Hung - Autonomous Research US LP

Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Brian Bedell of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thanks very much. Good morning. Maybe, Scott, if I could just zero in a little bit on the run rate in the second quarter, given we have some moving parts. So obviously we have the $12 million drop from the divestiture of IDMS net of the acquisition of Atrium. If we look at just sort of the organic growth rates that you're outlining for the year and assume that's a good run rate into the second quarter, I would get sort of a data number around $512 million, $513 million. Just want to make sure I'm doing that correctly and if that's a good run rate to base off of coming into the back of the year. And then if you can comment on Trayport and how that would – if you had to divest that, how much that would reduce the revenue by on a quarterly basis.

Scott Anthony Hill - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Yes. So first of all, I think – without validating your particular number, I think the logic you followed to get to it is spot on. So I think you're thinking about it exactly right. And with regards to Trayport, when we bought that business we noted that it was about $80 million of revenue at about a 50% margin. And I can't really say anything more to you about it right now. Obviously, we remain in the process. And if we get to a point where that trajectory changes, we'll come back and update guidance at that point.

Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. So that second quarter run rate then is clean now with deals at this level? In other words from a run rate perspective, that's what we should be forecasting going from that basis.

Scott Anthony Hill - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Yes. As we sit here today, yes.

Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Great. Then just going back to Europe, Jeff, your comments on Brexit. If you had to bifurcate that volume on rates in the UK versus your Netherlands clearinghouse, would that be something more along the lines of separating just the Euribor versus the sterling, so keeping the sterling in the UK, Euribor over to Europe? Or would that be also really cutting up that Euribor and bifurcating that between European customers and UK customers, if you were forced to do that? Would you see that as something that would be impactful or not really that big a deal?

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

That's a good question. I have had the great privilege of talking to senior managers at a lot of the banks that are coming up with contingency plans for various outcomes of the BREXIT negotiations. One of the interesting themes is that once things start to move, if they were to move, there aren't obvious lines of demarcation where things would stop. In other words, put yourself in the position of a bank manager. You have sales people probably already and you need then maybe risk management people and compliance people. And the next thing you know, you're moving more and more and more in order to support the organization. So as we talk to our customer base about how they're thinking of moving, we haven't come to an obvious answer, an obvious break point. And people are – all of us in financial services are thinking of the two ends of the barbell. What are the extremes if we don't go? And what are the extremes if we do go? And then what are the shades of gray in between? And it is not obvious. For us, however, you should understand that part of the logic of building this company has been to get everybody on a common technology so that our connections, for example, to market makers and banks, the way people are located to us, the way our data feeds operate, are really agnostic to where the geographic domicile for regulation is. And so a move is really, like I mentioned, more of a back office operation. Certainly has lots of implications and impact on our customers. But from ICE's standpoint, we've built the company to do that. And you've seen us move contracts and jurisdictions around already, move from one clearinghouse to another and move across various platforms. And that's the kind of business that we think a lot about and develop internal processes for. So we sit in a relatively luxurious position, waiting for the outcome of what our customers actually want to do.

Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

So if those liquidity pools were cut up a little bit, you don't think that would have a material impact on the pricing ability on both the clearing and the trading side?

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Might have just the opposite, in fact. We've seen – think about the new entrants that have come into some of our markets where they create a new pool of trading. Let's take energy for example, there's some new entrants, new pools of trading. What does it result for us? Record volume, record open interest, record revenue. Look at European interest rates, new competitor there, record volume for us. When you split these liquidity pools, and entrants may do that and regulators may cause that, what happens is that overall volumes tend to go up because the market starts to arbitrage and tries to put the market back together, the value of data goes up. And the whole thing for us turns out to be very good business. We fight that because we don't think it's in the best interest of the market. We have ways of growing otherwise, but we have positioned ourselves for more fragmentation which ultimately I think leads to higher revenues and earnings for ICE.

Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. That's great color. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Alex Blostein of Goldman Sachs, please go ahead. Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Just a clarification question, I guess at this point. So, Scott, I think you mentioned that your expense guidance for the year remains as you guys highlighted on the last call, I think it was $1.94 billion, $1.98 billion. Is that inclusive of the Atrium cost that, I guess, coming in this quarter. And then maybe you could just give us an update on run rate savings from IDC integration you guys expect to be at by the end of the year and how much is left for 2018?

Scott Anthony Hill - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Yes, so you're right the full-year guidance didn't change. We said it was $1.94 billion to $1.96 billion, (51:54) effectively flat versus the prior year. But last quarter I did mention that those expenses, it would be flat plus maybe $10 million to $12 million net of all the various acquisitions and divestitures that we have talked about to date. So again, still inside that range with maybe the acquisitions pushing it up a little above the middle overall. That's the reason why we didn't reiterate it, because we're still in the same guidance range. In terms of synergies, you may recall that we entered the year by increasing our synergies to $130 million to go. We said we'd get $60 million out this year, we're on track to do that. We said we'd get the remaining $70 million over 2018 and 2019 and I remain confident that we've got road maps in place to go and get those synergies, so. We feel confident about where we are from an expense management standpoint and a synergy realization standpoint. Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Got it, thanks.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Chris Harris of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Christopher Harris - Wells Fargo Securities

Analyst

Thanks, so you guys are doing quite well on listings versus your primary competitor. Wonder if you guys could talk a little bit about that, what's driving the success. And I know you guys have made a lot of investments in the New York Stock Exchange since you've acquired it. Is that having a positive impact?

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Yes, I think the second part of your question is the answer to the first, which is we've become more focused on it and we've really forced our team there to think about what is it that we do well and sell that, if you will, and allow our competitors to sell what they do well and let the market line up against those facts. In other words, we're not trying to being them and they're not trying to be us and the market is finding its natural home. What the NYSE does well with that floor-based system is large, complicated multi-national IPOs and it's just what the company is good at and it just so happens that a lot of the companies that are coming to market right now are those kinds of capital raise, and so we're doing well. There's a whole part of the market that we don't do well at that our competitors do better at and so we don't try to force our people to go after the ones that aren't obvious for us and that play to our strengths. It's just like any business, just getting people to focus on what you do well and sell it with passion has really helped the NYSE. And I think at the end of the day, it's just having a little more focus. Tom Farley, his new management team there are doing an excellent job of delivering that culture to the NYSE.

Christopher Harris - Wells Fargo Securities

Analyst

Very good. And real quick, I know they're reasonably small but can you guys comment a little bit on the businesses you are acquiring, NSX and Atrium, maybe a little bit about the rationale and what your plans are for those.

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Sure. Start with Atrium. One of the things that we inherited and we've talked about before is the network that was around the NYSE called SFTI. It was largely built because Reg NMS required that the exchange have connectivity to the other exchanges and market trading centers. The NYSE very interestingly built that out to lots of exchanges and lots of trading centers. And so it is a SFTI network. The acronym is SFTI but it's appropriately named in that it is not a high speed network that is full of microwaves, it is a network that is incredibly reliable and it's used a lot by people for their secondary business continuity planning. So having that, we've just found that, boy, if we can buy other content like Interactive Data company that we can make available on that network, it's perfect. We found that Interactive Data company also had needed connectivity to exchanges. So we've offered various feeds across that network, including the data and feeds and access to our competitors. We bought Atrium which was connectivity in Canada to TMX. It's for me, as an engineer, it was almost an overlap of network that we had. So it allows us to move their customer base onto our network and deprecate essentially all of their underlying network connectivity and use the pipes that we already have in place. So a small deal. Should be very accretive for us in the long run. And it gives us a whole new customer base to which to sell other services. So those are the kind of things that we're thinking about on these bolt-on acquisitions. I use the analogy of television network. We have a great network. But if we can find a hit program or maybe a small program that if we put it on our network, because of the distribution, we can make it a hit. Those are the kind of things that appeal to us. They're small but, as I mentioned, just having more breadth, more customer touch, more diversity in the way we solve financial service solutions is driving growth for us across related assets that we have.

Operator

Operator

There are no additional questions at this time. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jeff Sprecher for closing remarks.

Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Kate. And thank everybody for joining us today. We'll look forward to continuing to update you on the progress that we're making as we go through the year. Have a good day.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.