Exclusive: ICE acquisition of SMX complete, new ICE Singapore exchange goes live – Detailed FinanceFeeds investigation in New York

Following an exclusive report which was conducted live by FinanceFeeds CEO Andrew Saks-McLeod in New York last week, at a private function during which announced that it was launching a new exchange in Singapore, the venue has begun operations as expected.

The exchange is not a new venue per say. FinanceFeeds investigated the structure of the business by meeting with Teyu Che Chern, the CEO of Singaporean futures giant Phillip Capital at the private event in Downtown Manhattan which hosted senior ICE executives who explained that the exchange has been established as a result of the acquisition by ICE of Singapore Mercantile Exchange.

Following the pre-launch introduction which was delivered by ICE senior directors at the invitation-only symposium, Mr. Teyu Che Chern confirmed exclusively to FinanceFeeds that ICE had bought the trading venue from Singapore Mercantile Exchange (SMX), a prominent Asian venue.

Speaking to Mr. Teyu Che Chern, Finance Feeds was given a comprehensive insight into the rationale behind the correlation between ICE’s acquisition of SMX and its importance to Phillip Capital.

Phillip Capital’s recent foray into the US market, where it has an office in Chicago with 25 staff, echos the firm’s corporate drive to bring Asian exchanges to within easy reach of American traders.

In Asia, and particularly the company’s native Singapore, Phillip Capital is a vast company with a 40 year history, and has, among other aspects, a commercial relationship with ICE. Phillip Capital’s Singapore headquarters is a clearing member of ICE Singapore, whereas Phillip Capital’s Chicago division is a clearing member of ICE in Chicago.

“We have been bringing Asian business to the US for a long time. In the US, our value proposition is that we offer customers a lot of depth in Asia. Phillip Capital has been around for 40 years. We know Asia very well and therefore we can offer customers to know Asia from our US office.”

“At Philip Capital in Asia, we have been doing alot of US business for a long time” explained Mr. Teyu Che Chern. “We thought that maybe we should set up our own clearing firm. We started here about 5 years ago by becoming a clearing member on CME, then on ICE and then on CBOE and NASDAQ Asian futures.”

“We used this structure to clear for Singapore, then after a while we began clearing for customers in the US. The advantage is that you can use Philip Capital in the US to clear into all the Asian exchanges” he said.

Having gone live today with futures contracts including mini-crude, precious metals and FX, a total of 8,847 contracts across all asset classes was traded at the new ICE Singapore exchange on the first day of business.

Lucas Schmeddes, President & COO of ICE Futures Singapore and ICE Clear Singapore today made a commercial statement:

“With a range of contracts across energy, gold and FX, our Singapore exchange and clearing house provides market participants with effective tools for managing price risk locally. We would like to thank customers and clearing members for their continued support and we look forward to working with the market to develop further contracts to support trading and clearing based on local regulatory requirements.”

FinanceFeeds is committed to engaging with the senior executives of the industry’s leaders in order to bring in-depth news and investigative reports on current corporate events in the FX industry

Photograph: Phillip Capital CEO Teyu Che Chern explains the structure of the new ICE exchange in Singapore to Andrew Saks-McLeod in New York