The Top Deals of 2022: Black Knight to ICE

From billion-dollar sales to apartments and a naval museum, this is one of the top deals in Northeast Florida over the past year.


  • By Mark Basch
  • | 12:00 a.m. December 29, 2022
  • | 5 Free Articles Remaining!
Black Knight is the dominant company in its field, providing processing services for mortgage lending companies. Almost two-thirds of all U.S. mortgage loans are processed through its platform.
Black Knight is the dominant company in its field, providing processing services for mortgage lending companies. Almost two-thirds of all U.S. mortgage loans are processed through its platform.
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Black Knight to ICE

The owner of the NYSE agrees to buy the mortgage processing firm for $13.1 billion.

Black Knight Inc.’s main business, providing processing services for mortgage lenders, has been in Jacksonville for 60 years under several different owners, and it will likely change hands again in 2023.

Intercontinental Exchange Inc. announced a $13.1 billion agreement May 4 to buy Black Knight.

ICE operates the New York Stock Exchange and other financial networks, including a system for originating mortgage loans.

While Black Knight’s biggest business is processing existing mortgage loans, it also offers systems for originating loans. That has prompted extra scrutiny of the deal over antitrust concerns by regulatory agencies, because the two companies combined would control at least 55% of the mortgage origination technology market.

The deal is expected to close by mid-2023, pending antitrust approval.

Black Knight was most recently a subsidiary of Jacksonville-based title insurance company Fidelity National Financial Inc., but it was spun off as a separate public company in 2015.

Black Knight has more than 2,000 employees in Jacksonville and ICE said it will continue to operate the business in Jacksonville.

 

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