Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. is the holding company for Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively, CME). CME is a designated contract market for the trading of futures and options on futures contracts. Trades are executed through open outcry, an electronic trading platform and privately negotiated transactions. Through its in-house Clearing House Division, CME clears, settles, nets and guarantees performance of all matched transactions in its products. CME resulted from the completion of a demutualization process whereby Chicago Mercantile Exchange, an Illinois not-for-profit membership organization, became a Delaware for-profit stock corporation. The transaction resulted in the conversion of membership interests in the Illinois corporation into stock ownership in the Delaware corporation and was completed on November 13, 2000.