TMX Group has agreed to acquire Cboe Australia and Cboe Canada from Cboe Global Markets for US$300 million (C$409 million), in a transaction that removes TMX’s principal challenger in Canadian equities trading and listings and folds Cboe’s Australian venue into the Toronto-based operator’s growth ambitions.
The Canadian component is by far the more consequential leg for market participants. Cboe Canada operates four trading books – NEO-L, NEO-N, NEO-D and MATCHNow – which together accounted for 12.5% of Canadian equities volume in October 2025, according to Cboe’s own market metrics. Folding those books into TMX, which already operates TSX, TSX Venture Exchange and TSX Alpha, materially concentrates the domestic lit, dark and inverted landscape under a single operator.John McKenzie, chief executive officer of TMX Group, said in a statement that the deal represents “a unique opportunity to strengthen our domestic marketplace for clients and the entire stakeholder ecosystem, while expanding the reach and impact of our presence in a region of the world we know well.” Craig Donohue, chief executive officer of Cboe Global Markets, framed the divestment as part of a strategic realignment to focus on core strengths, adding that the businesses are “well positioned for their next chapter.”
A reversal for Cboe, and for fragmentation
The exit closes a short chapter for Cboe in Canada, and comes despite recent technology investment. Cboe migrated its NEO trading books to its global Cboe Titanium platform in March 2025, cutting average FIX round-trip latency by around 45% to roughly 60 microseconds, and had been preparing to launch a Dedicated Cores infrastructure service in February 2026.
TMX inherits that uplift. It also inherits MATCHNow’s conditional order franchise via Cboe BIDS Canada, which the vendor reported was handling more than 83% of Canadian conditional trading volume in 2025 – an increasingly important channel for institutional block liquidity.
Regulatory approvals the obvious chokepoint
The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions in both jurisdictions, with the Canadian and Australian components expected to close separately. The Competition Bureau and provincial securities regulators – principally the Ontario Securities Commission – will take a close look at the domestic element, particularly the implications of folding Canada’s principal alternative exchange operator into the incumbent.
TMX argues the transaction will reduce direct and indirect costs for participants and improve execution quality and resiliency. Buy-side firms that have built routing logic around MATCHNow’s midpoint matching or NEO-N’s inverted pricing will want clarity on whether those venues retain distinct economics under TMX ownership or are progressively aligned with TSX Alpha and other incumbent books.The Australian leg
Cboe Australia adds an equities trading venue, a listings business – recently granted a corporate listings licence – and structured products and warrants capability. TMX is positioning the combination as bringing together the world’s leading mining and energy transition financing ecosystems, which reads more as a listings and issuer-services play than a trading technology one. For institutional execution desks active in APAC, the relevant question is whether TMX maintains Cboe Australia’s current connectivity and matching infrastructure or folds it into a broader operating model over time.
Venues, platform, execution
The combined Cboe businesses delivered approximately C$87 million of revenue and C$25 million of adjusted EBITDA in 2025, putting the transaction at roughly 4.7x revenue and 16-17x EBITDA. TMX expects the deal to be accretive to adjusted earnings per share within 12 months of closing, excluding synergies. The more material questions for capital markets participants sit outside those numbers: whether the four Cboe Canada books survive as distinct venues under TMX, what happens to the Cboe Titanium platform post-integration, and whether Canadian best execution dynamics meaningfully change once the principal alternative to TSX sits under the same corporate roof.
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