Miami International eyes equity futures after successful IPO

Speaking after the US exchange group listed shares in New York on Thursday, Thomas Gallagher, chairman and chief executive officer of Miami International Holdings (MIH), told FOW: “I’m happy with the pricing, I’m happy how the stock opened and I’m happy with the window in which I was able to get this IPO because the windows have been few and far between over the last four or five years.”

Shares in Miami International, which operates four US options exchanges and one futures market, opened at $23 on Thursday before hitting $32 and closing the day above $30.

Gallagher said the cash from the IPO will be used to diversify the business further by opening a new trading floor and launching the group’s first financial futures contracts.

“It couldn’t come at a better time as we start a lot of new initiatives. We are launching the new trading floor in September that will give me access to another 6-10% of the US multi-listed floor volume that we don't have today."

Gallagher added: “We will be the first national exchange in Miami working with Bloomberg as our partner who will be able to broadcast from the floor whenever they want.”

MIAX Sapphire, which launched in August last year, plans to open next month an options trading floor in Miami, the first of its kind in the US city.

The index licensing agreement with Bloomberg, signed in September last year, will see the partners develop a suite of index futures and options based on Bloomberg indices.

Gallagher said: “We signed an exclusive ten year deal last summer and added, more recently, the B500 so we’ll be able to put up futures contracts on our futures exchanges and options contracts on our options exchanges with a whole suite of Bloomberg products.”

MIAX Futures in January announced plans to launch futures and options based on the B500, a new US blue chip stock index from Bloomberg Index Services.

MIH listed on Thursday 15 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange at $23 a share, $2 above the top of its expected price range and valuing the group at just over $1.8bn.

Miami International, which runs exchanges in the US, Bermuda and Guernsey, kicked off last week its initial public offering process suggesting a price of $19 to $21 per share, which would have raised $315m.

MIH reported last week a significant jump in July trading activity with average daily volume at 8.6 million contracts, up 37% year-over-year.