Following the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) application approval earlier this month, Cboe Australia is now able to list new companies and directly compete with the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).
Speaking to InvestorDaily on the heels of the recent Citi Investment Conference 2025, head of listings, APAC at Cboe, Oran D'Arcy, said the firm is “optimistic” regarding the possibility of an uptick in new company listings going forward.
“We’ve had great engagement and we hear there’s some good things coming through in the next year,” D'Arcy said.
Prior to ASIC’s approval, initial public listings (IPOs) have been on the decline in Australia and across the world for some time, with the regulator launching a series of regulatory reforms earlier this year intended to boost the appeal of public markets.
A key aspect of the initiative is to accelerate the speed to market process, having introduced a two-year trial in June aimed at shaving up to a week off the IPO timetable.
Now Cboe’s arrival is poised to inject much-needed competition into Australia’s listings market, which has long been dominated by the ASX – which has been under heightened scrutiny following an August mix-up involving two company names that briefly wiped $400 million from TPG Telecom’s market value.
D'Arcy said that Cboe anticipates elevated competition will invariably lead to higher quality and lower prices for investors in the listings space, improving areas such as fees, distribution sales, marketing and the speed at which companies can go to market for IPOs.
He argued that the stock exchange has already succeeded in introducing competition in the past, pointing to initiatives like warrants and unique exchange-traded fund (ETF) listing rules, which aim to accelerate market entry for such products.
In particular, Cboe highlighted its leading role in developing fixed income rules in the space, with competitors having since changed theirs to match.
“Cboe ETFs are listed in less than six weeks from application – as opposed to the 4–6 month time frame quoted at other exchanges,” a spokesperson from the stock exchange told InvestorDaily.
Despite ETF Shares’ recent announcement that it will migrate its US-focused ETF suite from Cboe to the ASX in pursuit of improved broker productivity, Cboe remains unconcerned.
It asserted that ETP transfers are a “normal part of global markets”, reflecting the current evolution and competition among exchanges in Australia.
More broadly, D'Arcy stressed the ongoing importance of public listings in Australia, noting that the Australian investor base has a strong preference for purchasing shares in publicly listed companies: “That’s not really going to go away.”
When thinking about how companies access capital, he maintained that public listings are still a great way to engage with both a retail and institutional audience.
Looking forward, D'Arcy said although Cboe has only recently secured its licence and rule framework approval and is currently navigating its internal procedures, it soon plans to list companies from $30 million and above.
“Our focus is more around quality, less our own timing, so we want to make sure we did this right, but it’ll be very soon,” he said.
