The International Securities Exchange has revived plans to build a new US stock-options market, ISE chief Gary Katz said on Tuesday, opening a new front in ISE's battle against bigger rivals NYSE Euronext and CBOE Holdings Inc.
Katz had put ISE's aspirations for a second options exchange on the back burner last year, he said in an interview with Reuters, after Deutsche Boerse AG agreed to buy the parent of the Big Board in a deal that would have created a powerhouse in the US options trading industry by putting three US options markets under one roof. Deutsche Boerse owns ISE. NYSE Euronext operates the Amex and Arca venues.
The transatlantic deal fell through in February, after European regulators blocked it as anticompetitive, leaving ISE as the only major US options market operator with just one market.
Like NYSE Euronext, Nasdaq OMX Group and CBOE Holdings Inc each operate two markets. "During this year we really had not focused on it at all, but now we are turning our attention to it full time," Katz said. "It has become very clear that there are advantages to different models, and we are looking to develop something that brings new products, new pricing, new functionality."