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At today's Investor Day Conference with stockholders and analysts, CBOE Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBOE) senior management outlined the Company's strategic initiatives to enhance share value. It also noted that through September of this year,CBOE repurchased $15 million of common stock, representing 599,900 shares at an average price of $24.82. The shares were purchased as part of the Company's $100 million share repurchase plan, authorized in August.
"We are focused on growing our business by leveraging our expertise in product innovation, trading technology and investor education. This is our core mission and how we not only serve customers, but create stockholder value," CBOE Holdings Chairman and CEO William J. Brodskysaid. "We are committed to pursuing select strategic opportunities that enable us to expand our product and service offerings and capitalize on our core competencies."
CBOE also will continue to build on the successes of its volatility franchise and the all-electronic C2 Options Exchange (C2). C2, which provides the platform for over 350 individual equity and ETF options, yesterday added trading in SPXpm, an all-electronic S&P 500 product. SPXpm provides the convenience of point-and-click trading and is ten times larger than SPY options, which significantly lowers the cost of accessing a p.m.-settled product.
"SPXpm has received enthusiastic interest from retail investors and traders, online users who prefer the higher notional value S&P 500contract, and OTC users seeking an exchange-traded alternative that minimizes counter-party risk," said Edward T. Tilly, CBOE HoldingsExecutive Vice Chairman. "Additionally, our volatility products, anchored by the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) options and futures, continue to be a remarkable success story, and we are exploring ways to expand the volatility space even further."
"We remain focused on driving top-line growth and holding down costs," said Alan J. Dean, CBOE Holdings Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. "Our business model is a significant generator of cash, and we reported operating cash flow for the first six months of fiscal 2011 of $93 million, compared to $71 million for the same period last year. Our strong debt-free balance sheet provides us financial flexibility. Since our initial public offering in June 2010, we established a quarterly dividend, which we already increased 20 percent last quarter. The cash dividend in addition to our $100 million share repurchase plan demonstrates our commitment to returning capital to stockholders."
