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Archipelago Holdings shares went up 55% after the announcement that the company agreed to be taken over by the New York Stock Exchange.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has entered a merger agreement with the Archipelago Exchange (ArcaEx) which will lead to the combined entity, NYSE Group, Inc., becoming a publicly-held company.

According to a Bloomberg article,

"Archipelago rose as high as $29 and was trading at $26.41 at 11:01 a.m. New York time. The Chicago-based company's market value rose to $1.3 billion from about $884 million yesterday.

Investors said the transaction, which values the combined companies at $4.3 billion based on Archipelago's current stock price, benefits both sides. Archipelago, led by chairman and chief executive Gerald D. Putnam Jr., will become part of the world's biggest stock exchange, a market for 2,760 listed companies and more than 90 million investors. The NYSE gets access to electronic- trading technology and the ability to handle a range of securities other than stocks."

"It's a very rich deal for Archipelago," said Brendan Caldwell, chief executive of Caldwell Securities. "The 220-year-old New York Stock Exchange is being valued at just over twice what the 8-year-old is being valued at."

Out of the deal, NYSE seat owners will get $400 million distributed amongst them, plus 70% of the shares in NYSE Group, Inc.

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