SuperDerivatives Inc. was founded in 2000 by a team of derivatives traders from Israel with David Gershon as CEO. Their idea was to create an online calculator for real-time options. Gershon had been developing his own proprietary pricing and hedging models and technologies, and SuperDerivatives Inc. developed a model for options pricing. In 2001, SuperDerivatives launched the first real time option pricing tool delivered over the internet. Within 2 years most of the banks that traded options around the world used the SuperDerivatives pricing system and the option pricing model was referred to by many as the “benchmark for options”. The availability of the system over the internet opened many new option markets such as in China, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Turkey, Morocco, Dubai, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Colombia, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia. The users of the system included banks, hedge funds, corporations, brokers, central banks and auditors. The biggest contribution of SuperDerivatives was the fact that the transparency it created enabled many new market makers and takers to participate actively in the Vanilla and Exotic options market and as a result the bid-ask spreads shrunk and the liquidity and volume rose dramatically. Within less than 5 years SuperDerivative transformed the option market. In 2004, SuperDerivatives established a market data division publishing implied data from the OTC markets. This was followed by the launch of an independent valuation service. In 2010, they created a cross-asset derivatives pricing, structuring and pre-trade analysis system, called SDX. In 2011, they created a multi-bank trading system for FX options in partnership with FXCM Pro, called DCX. In late 2012, they established a market data platform called DGX. DGX was a free text data system with self configuration. SuperDerivatives had eight global offices in Europe, APAC and Americas.
Mergers and acquisitions
In September 2014, Intercontinental Exchange announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SuperDerivatives. The acquisition was said to accelerate the expansion of ICE's comprehensive multi-asset class clearing strategy. Terms of the all-cash transaction included a purchase price of approximately $350 million. Completion of the transaction was subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions. The transaction successfully completed on 7th October 2014.
