Intercontinental Exchange to buy mortgage data firm Black Knight for $US13.1 billion

The cash-and-stock deal will boost ICE’s involvement in US mortgage market.

ICE’s deal to buy Black Night has been approve by their boards. Picture: Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP

Intercontinental Exchange, parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has agreed to buy mortgage data firm Black Knight in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $US13.1 billion ($18bn), stepping up its involvement in the US mortgage market.

The exchange operator, known as ICE for short and Black Knight confirmed the deal in a joint press release today. Bloomberg reported earlier that ICE was considering a deal to acquire Black Knight.

The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies, and is expected to close in the first half of next year, subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions, the companies said.

Shares of Black Knight rallied 14.5 per cent after the news, while ICE shares dropped 4 per cent.

Atlanta-based ICE is best known as an operator of exchanges, clearinghouses and other financial-market infrastructure. In recent years, it has pivoted into housing in a bet on the growing digitization of the mortgage market.

In 2020, ICE agreed to buy mortgage-software firm Ellie Mae for about $US11bn. Earlier, the exchange company bought Simplifile, a firm that facilitates electronic processing of mortgage records, and the parent company of Mortgage Electronic Registrations Systems, a national electronic registry for tracking servicing rights and ownership interests for US mortgage loans.

Black Knight, based in Jacksonville, Florida, creates software, data and analytics for the real-estate and housing-finance markets.