Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Seeks Global Growth After Domestic Success

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) has announced a new strategic plan for 2027-2031, aiming to drive future growth beyond its current domestic limitations. In recent years, TASE has successfully expanded its investor base, attracted foreign investment, altered trading days, broadened index activities, and seen a surge in trading volumes, nearly doubling its revenues in a few years. Now, under CEO Itai Ben-Ze'ev, the exchange is looking internationally for its next growth phase.

The plan outlines a significant structural transformation, shifting TASE from an operator of the Israeli securities market to a holding group. This will involve establishing subsidiary companies for its core exchange operations, clearinghouse, indices, data, and technology, alongside new ventures. This structure is intended to facilitate partnerships, divestments, mergers, and acquisitions, enabling TASE to enter new markets, acquire technologies, and expand its geographical presence.

TASE projects an average annual revenue growth of 15%-18% between 2027 and 2031. If achieved, revenues could exceed NIS 1 billion by 2028, compared to less than NIS 330 million in 2021 and NIS 564 million in 2025. The exchange has a strong track record, exceeding its previous strategic plan's growth targets. However, sustaining such high growth rates becomes more challenging as the revenue base expands.

To achieve its new targets, TASE cannot solely rely on continued increases in stock and bond trading volumes, which have already seen substantial growth, partly due to changes in trading days. The exchange is also exploring new revenue streams, including establishing a trust services company and an administration services provider for non-regulated funds, aiming to capture value across the broader capital markets ecosystem.

While extending trading hours into the evening, potentially overlapping with Wall Street, was considered in a previous plan, it is not a central focus in the new strategy, lacking specific timelines or detailed frameworks. The new plan emphasizes a more diversified approach to growth, moving beyond the tangible drivers of the previous strategy, which successfully boosted TASE's stock performance, with shares rising significantly in the past year.