CME Group Inc. the world's largest futures exchange company, has reportedly hired two major real estate firms to advise and conduct the sale of the Nymex building, the headquarters of the New York Mercantile Exchange in Manhattan, New York, according to various media reports.
The 16-story building has served as Nymex's home for 16 years, since 1997. The group will not cease its trading operations in the building after the sale. It plans on leasing back a major part of the building including the trading floor. However, it has not ruled out the option of moving Nymex to other lower Manhattan buildings, reports CNBC.
According to the Real deal, Nymex initially listed the building in 2007 for around $600 to $700 million. However, in 2008, CME Group purchased the tower for $9.8 billion.
While Holly Duran Real Estate Partners will be advising the company on the sale of the building, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank will be marketing the structure.
The group is shedding most of its real estate assets. In 2012, the company announced that it had sold two of the three buildings that constituted the Chicago Board of Trade complex for $151.5 million, reports Bloomberg.
The CME Group plans to use the proceeds from the sale of the building to re-invest in its core derivatives and future exchanges business.
"The sale of the Nymex building will help us continue to reinvest in our core derivatives business, just as we did following the sale and lease-back of office space in the CBOT building in Chicago last year," Jamie Parisi, chief financial officer at CME Group, said in a statement.
The Group's performance in its core business has not been very impressive of late. Many hedge fund portfolios are dumping the group.
According to a feature on Insidermonkey.com:
"Due to the fact that CME Group Inc (NASDAQ:CME) has witnessed bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, logic holds that there were a few money managers that elected to cut their full holdings heading into Q2."
More recently, CME Group announced a second quarter dividend of $0.45 per share, which is payable June 25, 2013.
