I've been researching Intercontinental Exchange for a while now.

It's an excellent company with over 58% of its revenues being recurring revenues, and the remaining is transaction-based revenue, but the high net debt of the business and the low ROIC are worrying. If we exclude the Goodwill (Intercontinental Exchange does frequent acquisitions, boosting their Goodwill), we get a solid ROIC. However, this low ROIC suggests that the acquisitions consume significant invested capital (including Goodwill) but generate relatively poor returns.

If this turned around for the business, it would become a very interesting investment, but as of now, there's just too much debt (net-debt/FCF ratio of 5.5), and their acquisitions aren't paying off yet either... In addition, their EBITDA/interest coverage ratio is 5.9, which is not great.

$ICE