Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has launched a U.S. investment-grade bond sale. According to Odaily, the offering comes about two weeks after ICE announced plans to buy bond electronic trading platform MarketAxess for about $6 billion.

People familiar with the matter said the bond sale may be split into as many as five parts with maturities ranging from three to 10 years. The initial price guidance for the longest-dated bond was about 1.15 percentage points above U.S. Treasury yields.

ICE previously said it would acquire MarketAxess Holdings to expand its presence in the fixed-income trading market. MarketAxess is one of the leading electronic bond trading platforms and serves institutional investors by providing trading in corporate bonds, government bonds, and other fixed-income products.

ICE owns the New York Stock Exchange, futures exchanges, clearing operations, and data services. MarketAxess's electronic bond trading network would add to ICE's fixed-income trading ecosystem, according to the article.