02-05-01 The striped jackets, cryptic hand signals and raucous bellowing could soon be a thing of the past. London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), one of the last bastions of floor trading, will in a matter of months close its doors on two decades of so-called open-outcry dealing and go electronic.
"Our days are looking numbered down here," said ABN Amro broker Steve Rout. "We're still trying to digest it. It will be very sad. Within a year it'll be onto a screen, so we'll just have to wait and see how that develops. There are a lot of unhappy people down here." Dealers are expecting the IPE to move with the times as part of a combination with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which has put in a take-over bid valuing the IPE at $ 40-$ 140 mm.

The IPE would thus follow the London Stock Exchange, the LIFFE futures exchange and numerous commodities markets in the move to electronic systems, which offer cheaper costs and more efficient market places. The two oil exchanges said their tie-up wouldally ICE's technological expertise with IPE's established positions as the oil world's premier trading forum.
"The combination of ICE's state-of-the-art technology platform, growing volumes and committed shareholder base, with the IPE's established liquidity and brand name, management expertise and status as an exchange makes this an extremely attractive transaction," said ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher.