ICE Completes Acquisition of Ellie Mae
Written By: Joel Palmer, Op-Ed Writer
Intercontinental Exchange completed its acquisition of mortgage technology firm Ellie Mae at the end of last week after receiving regulatory approval.
“We are excited to begin the next important chapter in our journey to digitize the residential mortgage industry,” said Jeffrey C. Sprecher, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange. “Ellie Mae’s industry leadership and best-of-breed technology will better enable us to further accelerate the automation of the mortgage origination workflow, which will benefit stakeholders across the production chain, including consumers.”
The $11 billion deal was previously announced in early August. Intercontinental Exchange bought Ellie Mae from private equity firm Thoma Bravo, which purchased Ellie Mae a year ago.
Founded in 2000, Intercontinental Exchange is the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. It operates exchanges, learning houses and information services for investing, trading and managing risk.
Intercontinental Exchange entered the mortgage automation market in 2016 when it acquired Mortgage Electronic Registrations System (MERS). The strategy continued with the acquisition of Simplifile in 2019, furthering a focus on digitizing the closing and post-closing process for U.S. mortgages.
The core focus of Ellie Mae's technology, expertise and network is in the mortgage origination process, connecting brokers, underwriters and lenders. With all three of these entities, MERS, Simplifile and Ellie Mae working together as part of ICE Mortgage Technology, the expanded platform will, for the first time, bring together all of the key stakeholders from origination to final settlement in one digital mortgage ecosystem.
Ellie Mae was founded in 1997 to automate and digitize the residential mortgage industry. Through its digital lending platform, Ellie Mae provides technology services in the mortgage supply chain. Lenders rely on Ellie Mae to securely manage and facilitate the exchange of data to enable the origination of mortgages, while adhering to local, state and federal compliance requirements.
Ellie Made had been a publicly traded company until the acquisition by Thoma Bravo last year for $3.7 billion.
About the Author
As an NAMU® Opinion Editorial Contributor, Joel Palmer is a freelance writer who spent 10 years as a business and financial reporter and another 10 years in marketing for the insurance and financial services industries. He regularly writes about the mortgage industry, as well as residential and commercial real estate, investments, and retirement income planning. He has also ghostwritten books on starting a business, marketing, and retirement income planning.
