IntercontinentalExchange: Best in Class

Wall Street executives clearly like working with Sprecher and ICE, and the reason they repeatedly give is his willingness to adapt to their needs, rather than forcing them to use standardized products.

In an e-mail sent through a spokesman, Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn called Sprecher, "one of the most effective operators in the exchange space. He has built his business in a way that anticipated the developments in the industry and has also built a real partnership with investors and customers. I have no doubt that, as the landscape changes in the clearing and derivatives world, Jeff and ICE will have a key role to play."

Still regulators say they are determined not to let ICE gain an unfair advantage in the clearing space.

"The best-designed [central counterparty] should be allowed to emerge, rather than just the first mover winning by default. Both buy-side and sell-side firms should be able to choose through fair competition where they can best clear their trades," says Theo Lubke, a senior bank supervisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Sprecher thinks the fact that ICE has been around for so much less time than its major competitors gives it an edge, partly because he and his employees have the feeling of ownership that comes with helping to build a business, and partly because they are less burdened by old ways of doing things.

"It's amazing to have companies that are 150 years old that are still very highly respected firms. When you think about the fact that they went through the Great Depression, the birth of the telephone, the telegraph, the computer -- all the changes that have gone on in 150 years -- these companies have done well. But the people managing them also are dealing with brands and legacies and internal practices that have grown up over 150 years, none of which we have."

-- Written by Dan Freed in New York.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints