By Niket Nishant and Suzanne McGee
(Reuters) -The New York Stock Exchange announced on Wednesday it will launch an exchange in Texas, increasing competition among listing venues in the state.
Several high-profile firms, including Elon Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX, have relocated their headquarters to Texas, attracted by the state’s perceived favorable legal and regulatory environment. The Texas Stock Exchange, a new venture backed by financial giants including BlackRock, Citadel Securities and Charles Schwab, is targeting a 2026 launch after submitting paperwork late last month to operate as a national securities exchange.
The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq have dominated the lucrative U.S. listings market in a virtual duopoly since the 2000s. The TXSE would represent the first challenge to that dominance if it wins regulatory approval to begin trading and seeking new listings.
NYSE Chicago will reincorporate in Texas and rebrand as NYSE Texas, providing companies with a new venue to list their securities, said the NYSE, which is part of the Intercontinental Exchange.
“As the state with the largest number of NYSE listings, representing over $3.7 trillion in market value for our community, Texas is a market leader in fostering a pro-business atmosphere,” NYSE Group President Lynn Martin said.
A TXSE spokesperson did not comment directly on the NYSE plan.
“We have known all along that Texas is the best place to do business,” the spokesperson said in a statement following the news. “The Texas Stock Exchange is harnessing this momentum to build a national securities exchange in our home state.”
Nasdaq recently stepped up its presence in Texas, announcing a new regional focus for its listings business and naming Rachel Racz to head the segment focusing on Texas, Latin America and the southern United States.
The NYSE’s initiative shows that a regional focus may not be enough of a competitive distinction that will allow the Texas Stock Exchange to challenge the two incumbents, said Owen Lau, a senior analyst at Oppenheimer & Co.
“There may be something in Texas Exchange that is yet to be revealed, so it is still too early to gauge how it plays out. But so far, it doesn’t appear to dramatically change the listing/exchange landscape.”
Both TXSE and NYSE Texas will be fully electronic equities exchanges headquartered in Dallas.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant and Manya Saini in Bengaluru, Suzanne McGee in New York; additional reporting by Laura Matthews in New York; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri, Mark Porter and Richard Chang)
