CBOE 3rd-qtr income soars

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Chicago Board Options Exchange, the largest U.S. options market, said on Thursday that third-quarter profit more than doubled, helped by a rise in record trading volume and new product offerings.

In the past year, the CBOE has shifted to a for-profit model from a member-owned organization, which could foreshadow an initial public offering.

After-tax net income jumped 150 percent to $22.7 million from $9.1 million a year ago.

Before taxes, quarterly profit rose to $41.2 million from $16.3 million.

Revenue increased to $96.8 million from $63.4 million. The 53 percent gain reflected higher transaction fees generated by strong growth in contracts traded, the CBOE said.

Average daily volume during the quarter was 4.1 million contracts, up from 2.5 million in the year-ago quarter.

Option volume rose 62 percent to a record 260 million contracts from 160.1 million contracts.

The CBOE this year rolled out several new products, including options on the CBOE Nasdaq-100 Volatility Index .VXN and the CBOE Russell 2000 Volatility Index .RVX.

In a sign of CBOE's worth in equity, the price of a CBOE seat fetched an all-time high of $2.7 million on August 6. A total of 19 seats were bought during the quarter, CBOE said.