CHICAGO, Dec. 7, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group Inc.
(NASDAQ: CME) today declared its annual variable dividend,
amounting to $3.25 per share.
The dividend is payable January 13,
2017, to shareholders of record on December 28, 2016. When CME Group adopted
its annual variable dividend structure in February 2012, the intention was to determine the
excess cash available at the end of each year, with the level to
increase or decrease from year to year based on operating results,
potential investment activity and other forms of capital
return.
The annual variable dividend of $3.25 per share to be paid in January 2017 totals approximately $1.1 billion. Including today's announced
variable dividend and the previously announced fourth-quarter 2016
dividend of $0.60 per share to be
paid in December, the company will have paid a total of more than
$7.5 billion in quarterly and
variable dividends since adopting the annual variable dividend
structure in the beginning of 2012.
As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace,
CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) is where the world comes to manage
risk. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global
benchmark products across all major asset classes, including
futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes,
foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals.
Around the world, CME Group brings buyers and sellers together
through its CME Globex® electronic trading platform and its
exchanges based in Chicago,
New York and London. CME
Group also operates one of the world's leading central counterparty
clearing providers through CME Clearing and CME Clearing Europe,
which offer clearing and settlement services across asset classes
for exchange-traded and over-the-counter derivatives. CME
Group's products and services ensure that businesses around the
world can effectively manage risk and achieve growth.
CME Group is a trademark of CME Group Inc. The Globe Logo, CME,
Globex and Chicago Mercantile Exchange are trademarks of Chicago
Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and the Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of the
Board of Trade of the City of
Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and
ClearPort are registered trademarks of New York Mercantile
Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange,
Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners. Further information about CME Group
(NASDAQ: CME) and its products can be found at
www.cmegroup.com.
Statements in this press release that are not historical
facts are forward-looking statements. These statements are not
guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties
and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual
outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed
or implied in any forward-looking statements. Among the factors
that might affect our performance are: increasing competition by
foreign and domestic entities, including increased competition from
new entrants into our markets and consolidation of existing
entities; our ability to keep pace with rapid technological
developments, including our ability to complete the development,
implementation and maintenance of the enhanced functionality
required by our customers; our ability to continue
introducing competitive new products and services on a timely,
cost-effective basis, including through our electronic trading
capabilities, and our ability to maintain the competitiveness of
our existing products and services, including our ability to
provide effective services to the over-the-counter market; our
ability to adjust our fixed costs and expenses if our revenues
decline; our ability to generate revenues from our processing
services; our ability to maintain existing customers, develop
strategic relationships and attract new customers; our ability to
expand and offer our products outside the
United States; changes in domestic and non-U.S. regulations;
changes in government policy, including policies relating to common
or directed clearing and changes as a result of legislation
stemming from the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act; the costs
associated with protecting our intellectual property rights and our
ability to operate our business without violating the intellectual
property rights of others; our ability to generate revenue from our
market data that may be reduced or eliminated by the growth of
electronic trading, the state of the overall economy or declines in
subscriptions; changes in our rate per contract due to shifts in
the mix of the products traded, the trading venue and the mix of
customers (whether the customer receives member or non-member fees
or participates in one of our various incentive programs) and the
impact of our tiered pricing structure; the ability of our
financial safeguards package to adequately protect us from the
credit risks of clearing members; the ability of our compliance and
risk management methods to effectively monitor and manage our
risks, including our ability to prevent errors and misconduct and
protect our infrastructure against security breaches and
misappropriation of our intellectual property assets; changes in
price levels and volatility in the derivatives markets and in
underlying fixed income, equity, foreign exchange, interest rate
and commodities markets; economic, political and market conditions,
including the volatility of the capital and credit markets and the
impact of economic conditions on the trading activity of our
current and potential customers stemming from the financial crisis
that began in 2008 and any other future crises; our ability to
accommodate increases in trading volume and order transaction
traffic without failure or degradation of performance of our
trading and clearing systems; our ability to execute our growth
strategy and maintain our growth effectively; our ability to manage
the risks and control the costs associated with our acquisition,
investment and alliance strategy; our ability to continue to
generate funds and/or manage our indebtedness to allow us to
continue to invest in our business; industry and customer
consolidation; decreases in trading and clearing activity; the
imposition of a transaction tax or user fee on futures and options
on futures transactions and/or the repeal of the 60/40 tax
treatment of such transactions; the unfavorable resolution of
material legal proceedings and the seasonality of the futures
business. More detailed information about factors that may affect
our performance may be found in our filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission, including our most recent periodic reports
filed on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, which are available in the
Investor Relations section of the CME Group Web site. We undertake
no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements,
whether as a result of new information, future events or
otherwise.
CME-G
To view the original version on PR Newswire,
visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cme-group-inc-declares-annual-variable-dividend-of-325-per-share-300374907.html
SOURCE CME Group Inc.