Despite a partial recovery in the Aussie IPO market – there are at least five currently slated – things aren’t so great right now for the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX:ASX), as an entity.
Adding to the company’s ongoing CHESS bungle; and a lawsuit from ASIC, there were two big downside catalysts that smashed the self-listed stock this week.
If you need evidence of that, just consider that the stock has lost -7.4% of its valuation this week alone.
Let’s start with the most embarrassing bungle for our esteemed bourse regulator.
Which TPG?
Earlier this week, the ASX itself accidentally cross-posted, on TPG Telecom’s behalf, an erroneous announcement relating to an Infomedia takeover offer that didn’t actually have anything to do with TPG Telecom at all.
Instead, the Infomedia deal related to a private equity firm called TPG Capital.
Presumably, a human worker overlooked an announcement (read: didn’t read it properly,) or, some kind of automation bungle is to blame.
At least, if I was running the ASX, I’d be hoping I could blame a robot.
That was bad enough, and you can pretty much guess here that TPG Telecom will be launching a lawsuit.
Anyway, as for CEO Helen Lofthouse who is running the ASX, she had more to worry about than just irate TPG (Telecom) shareholders.
Stung by ASIC once again
Because the company got caught out for misleading the market once again on Thursday, though at least this time, ASIC hasn’t taken it to court.
Although, it probably can’t take the ASX to court again for a second time, seeing as it’s already doing so.
And that case formed part of why the ASX was forced to issue a FY26 guidance downgrade this week, with the company apparently failing to realise its ASIC inquiry process could cost it up to $35M in FY26 when it last updated the market mid-June.
“When we last updated the market on 16 June, we acknowledged the ASIC Inquiry had only just been announced. Since then, we’ve completed our assessment of the range of expenses we expect to incur in relation to the Inquiry,” Lofthouse wrote.
Okay, sure, why not.
Then you’ve got CBOE
Somehow, that wasn’t all Lofthouse had to grapple with this week, either. Because in the background of all of this – the ongoing CHESS scandal, the ASIC lawsuit, multiple technological clearing house issues in recent years, the TPG Telecom thing – there’s now yet another pain point for the ASX Ltd.
And that’s the possible introduction of Chicago-based CBOE markets into Australia. Former ASIC chief Joe Longo told an economic roundtable event this week that the US player may soon be on Aussie shores taking market share off ASX Ltd.
For a while, the only real competitor to ASX Ltd has been Chi-x, kind of dead in the water on a vibes-based analysis, and the company owned by a very colourful range of characters, National Stock Exchange Ltd.
That latter player was recently bought out by Canada, who I have a feeling mightn’t have done the world’s deepest-diving due diligence there. Make of that what you will.
But with CBOE already allowing Aussie share trading on its own systems, as well as providing real-time live pricing for Aussie shares (free of ASX Ltd’s 20 minute delay,) it looks like the bourse might need to seriously get real about where it currently stands.
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