Intercontinental Exchange Inc., the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, today announced an agreement to acquire data technology and mortgage market infrastructure firm Black Knight Inc. for $13.1 billion.

The deal is a cash-and-stock transaction and values Black Knight at $85 per share.

Founded in 2008, Black Knight provides integrated technology, data and analytics solutions that facilitate and automate business processes in the mortgage lifecycle. The company pitches itself as transforming the mortgage industry by offering solutions such as loan origination, loan serving, secondary market automation and a data and analytics marketplace.

Black Knight’s Empower loan origination system is said to integrate all of the features and functionality needed to originate loans through multiple channels. The loan serving system offers scalability, continuous regulatory updates and integration with other technologies. The company’s ecosystem is designed to add value for clients of all sizes across the mortgage and real estate lifecycles by helping organizations lower costs, increase efficiencies, grow their businesses and reduce risk.

The obvious question is: Why would the owner of the NYSE buy a mortgage-lending software company? As it turns out, this is not ICE’s first play in the mortgage industry. ICE acquired Ellie Mae, now known as ICE Mortgage Technology, in 2020. Black Knight, as a leader in managing mortgages, is a nice fit next to Ellie Mae.

ICE says the acquisition will strengthen its rapidly growing mortgage technology business. The purchase is claimed to result in improvements in the mortgage lending process for borrowers and lenders by increasing automation and efficiencies that lower the cost of obtaining a mortgage while harnessing data that can help current homeowners lower their monthly payments and lessen the likelihood of default.

“Since our founding in 2000, ICE’s simple mission has been to make analog and opaque financial transactions more digital and transparent, beginning with commodity markets, extending across a large array of asset classes and most recently working to help streamline the mortgage industry,” Jeffrey C. Sprecher, Founder, chairman and chief executive of Intercontinental Exchange, said in a statement.

Sachin Dhoot, vice president of data and platform engineering at Ellie Mae, spoke with Rebecca Knight, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, in December 2020. Dhoot discussed some interesting facts about Ellie Mae, including that the company stores the data of nearly half of all U.S. mortgages.

Image: ICE