CME Group Inc. (CME) said Monday it is looking to sell most of the Chicago Board of Trade building, putting one of Chicago's most iconic structures on the market.

The disclosure comes less than a week after the exchange operator warned it may leave Illinois to avoid an increase in corporate taxes. Yet a CME spokesman said sale of the Board of Trade building isn't connected to discussions over a potential move and declined to say whether it would make an exit easier.

The 80-year-old Art Deco building is comprised of three towers and houses the trading floors for agricultural commodities such as corn and wheat and financial derivatives such as interest-rate futures. It was designated as a historic landmark in 1978 and anchors Chicago's financial district.

CME said it has hired Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. (JLL) and Holly Duran Real Estate Partners LLC to market the north and south towers, which include the trading floors for agriculture commodities. CME said it would lease back the space it currently occupies in the buildings, including the trading pits.

The exchange operator said plans to maintain ownership of the building's east tower, which houses the trading floor for its financial-futures markets.

CME said it remains committed to "open outcry" trading, which accounted for about 20% of the 3.1 billion futures and options traded on its markets last year. In recent years, however, its business increasingly has migrated to computer screens. CME opened a new data center last summer in the Chicago suburbs to support continued growth in electronic trading.

Driving the sale is CME's desire to exit the real-estate business and free up capital to reinvest in its core derivatives business, said Jamie Parisi, CME's chief financial officer, in a statement.

CME spokesman Michael Shore warned against making a connection between Monday's disclosure and comments by CME Executive Chairman Terry Duffy last week.

Duffy, during the company's annual shareholders meeting Wednesday, said he and Parisi had been examining the possibility of relocating CME's corporate base outside Illinois. In January, the state sharply raised the corporate tax rate as part of efforts to put Illinois' finances in order.

CME leaders remain concerned about the tax issue, but they said they want to stay in Chicago.

A group of about 25 protesters gathered outside CME Group's Chicago headquarters a few blocks from the Board of Trade building Monday. They decried the company's complaints about state taxes and its warnings about potentially exiting Illinois.

"They're blackmailing us as taxpayers," said Regis Banks, a Chicago city worker and local union official, who said budget pressures forced him and his colleagues to take furlough days while the profitable CME received $15 million in local government incentives.

-By Jacob Bunge and Howard Packowitz, Dow Jones Newswires; 312-750-4117; jacob.bunge@dowjones.com

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