Nymex Shareholders Approve Listing

New York Mercantile Exchange shareholders Thursday voted overwhelmingly to go ahead with an initial public offering and publicly list the 134-year-old Bourse's parent company Nymex Holdings Inc.

More than 91% of the shares voted at a special meeting were in favor of the initial public offering, Nymex said in a statement. The IPO, aimed to be completed by the end of the year, comes amid a surge of fund interest in energy trading and the rise of electronic platform IntercontinentalExchange Inc.

Prospects for the IPO have been boosted by the successful introduction of simultaneous electronic and floor trading of Nymex's benchmark crude contract and a deal to do the same with metals traded on Nymex's Comex division.

Nymex, the world's biggest commodity futures exchange for physically-delivered products, is looking to raise only a fraction of its probable market value first up. The exchange hasn't nailed down exactly how much it will chase but in July it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission its intention to sell up to $250 million of common stock.