Ending months of industry speculation about its future, Govpx Inc. has agreed to be acquired by ICAP PLC for $13 million. The big – and aggressive – U.K.-based interdealer broker plans to use Govpx to supplement its existing cash markets market data activities. Govpx is provider of U.S. bond market data. It was established 15 years ago in order to provide price transparency in a marketplace that until its foundation let very little market information outside the club of the 30-odd primary dealers in U.S. government securities, in much the same way that the NASD’s Trace data feed has been mandated to improve transparency in the corporates marketplace. With Cantor’s lock on bond market data via Telerate broken a few years ago – and the general decline in interest in Treasury securities as the U.S. budget deficit turned into a surplus under President Bill Clinton – Govpx’s importance to the marketplace dwindled. Nonetheless, it maintained a reasonable business is providing contributed bond market data, both through redistributors and directly via the web. Govpx now claims 1,000 client sites, 8,000 subscribers, and 2004 revenues of $15.3 million. Over the years, the company has used a variety of IDB contributors, among them ICAP’s Garban, Tullett & Tokyo and Hilliard Farber. Under ICAP’s ownership, Govpx will continue to redistribute data sourced from external brokers and dealers, and will operate as a separate entity within ICAP’s information business under existing CEO Larry Leuzzi.