The parent company of the Chicago Board Options Exchange said Tuesday it will move its headquarters into the Old Post Office and will build a new trading floor in the Chicago Board of Trade Building at 141 W. Jackson.
Cboe Global Markets said it will occupy 185,000 square feet in the Old Post Office, 433 W. Van Buren, in the second half of 2020. Its new trading floor will occupy the seventh and eighth floors of the landmark building on Jackson and will mark the option exchange’s return to space it occupied in the 1970s and 1980s.
The exchange intends to sell its longtime home at 400 S. La Salle.
The company signed a 15-year lease, with a five-year renewal office, for the Old Post Office space, where it will join companies such as Uber and Walgreens in repopulating a long-vacant giant of a building now a hit with tenants seeking large and flexible floor space.
The trading floor space, 40,000 square feet, goes to the company on a 12-year lease. The company said it expects it will be ready in 2021.
Cboe announced its plans at a meeting with employees Tuesday morning. In material it issued about the moves, the company said that while it considered various options downtown for its real estate needs, it never considered leaving Chicago.
“Cboe has played a critical role in making Chicago the financial derivatives capital of the world and continues to draw a community of traders, clearing firms and other market participants to the city,” Chairman Ed Tilly said.
“Relocating our headquarters to the Old Post Office reinforces our commitment to maintaining Chicago’s status as a key financial center in the global economy,” he said.
Progressives on the City Council and their supporters are advocating a financial transaction tax that would apply to Cboe and Chicago futures markets. But the tax, which would require legislative approval, is opposed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who has argued that the exchanges could easily avoid it by processing electronic trades via servers outside of city limits.
In materials distributed to employees, the company said the Old Post Office “is open and light-filled with clean lines and an efficient and collaborative atmosphere. Its precision echoes the fast-paced work environment of Cboe.”
The exchange’s trading pits have been downsized as its business has gone to electronic platforms, cutting into the traditional face-to-face markets known as “open outcry.” But its floor is still busy with activity tied to S&P 500 Index options and the Cboe Volatility Index options, or VIX, the stock market’s widely followed “fear gauge.”
“Our customers continue to find value in the trading floor experience, therefore Cboe remains committed to supporting open outcry,” Tilly said. “We’re demonstrating that through a long-term lease and move to a building that affords robust trading floor infrastructure and amenities.”
Cboe, always a close cousin of the now combined Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, was founded in 1973 in the CBOT Building. It moved to 400 S. La Salle in 1984.
Its new trading floor will occupy the same area that housed its pits in the late 1970s to the early 1980s, the company said.
