TMX Group Limited (X) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you all for joining Bank of America's 33rd Annual Financial Services Conference. This is Craig Siegenthaler, North America Head of Diversified Financials at Bank of America. I'm also joined on stage by Eli Abboud, who covers the exchanges and market structure names with me. And we are pleased to have John McKenzie, the CEO of TMX here with us. TMX is Canada's largest exchange with a business that spans across cash equities, options, rates, fixed income and energy. It's also one of the largest listing venues in the world, providing capital formation services to about 3,500 companies. John has been with TMX for over 20 years, has worn many different hats over that period. He was the architect of several major acquisitions, including Maple, the Montreal Exchange and Trayport. John, thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

So let me just kick it off on the macro front. John, can you give us a state of the union of the IPO markets I think the consensus was for a big IPO come back in '25. But so far, it seems like companies may be holding off on the market.

I think that's a fair, fair summary. I mean the interesting piece is when you look at it, what are the conditions for IPOs to happen for a good market for IPOs. The financial conditions are kind of the best they've ever been. We've got values increased and that market value of the index up like 20% last year. Valuations across the border are up. Liquidity in the market is stronger than it's been, interest rates are coming down. There's a lot of capital on the sidelines. So you've got good conditions to do IPOs. And so what the challenges is to continue this market uncertainty. So we were starting to see some deals come to market. We saw Groupe Dynamite come later -- late last year. We had a number of Australian firms that we brought over to list in December last year. But let's be candid, the kind of geopolitical uncertainty, particularly talk around tariffs, what does it mean for trade. It will lead companies to sit on the sidelines a bit more. It puts on an investment chill, and you can see Board of Directors saying, okay, we're just going to wait a little bit longer. From a business standpoint, we have still 1,600-plus private companies in our go-public pipeline that we engage with. They are various sizes and sectors right from the small caps that can go on to the venture exchange to senior companies that could list on the senior market. I'm talking to companies that are in health care, finance, technology, resources. So across the board, there are companies that could raise money if the market certainty and the comfort was there to do a successful deal and get the right follow-on.

Great. Let's move on to growth. So, what are the biggest growth opportunities you're eyeing up for 2025 and '26?

Yes, it's a great question because especially '25 is very much an execution of our growth strategy year. We laid out in our Investor Day, 5 key pillars that we were driving growth for the firm. And candidly, we've been executing on that for a couple of years in 2024, end up being a record year for us in terms of organic revenue by executing on that plan. So it's around continuing to globalize our Trayport franchise, Trayport 17% up last year in pound sterling. We're looking to continue that build out in 3 different ways, and I'm sure we'll talk about this more, but it's built out in the U.S., continue to build into the Japanese power market and look to how we can extend into refined oil in multiple geographies. And so continuing to globalize that franchise, build up the asset classes. We have a strategy around global markets. So taking that capability that we've got in trading, our trading execution and move into other markets. Happy to say that we had a very successful launch in the U.S. of our new ATS just a couple of weeks ago. I wouldn't necessarily have timed that for 2 days after inauguration. In theory, we probably would have planned that differently because we got tested on how much volume we could do right away, but a very successful start in the U.S. And then the other pillars are a deep continued build on servicing ETFs. ETF was invented on the Toronto Stock Exchange 35 years ago this year. We're one of the largest listers of ETFs in the world, and that's why we moved into index benchmarking, the acquisition of VettaFi, the acquisition of iNDEX Research last year, we're going to keep investing for growth in servicing the ETF and other asset managers. And then the last 2 pillars are one that we call beyond listings. Which is even recognizing we have a very large listing base, we're looking at how do you move beyond just the listing transaction and provide that broader set of services that a public company needs or, quite frankly, a private company who is a capital raiser needs as well. So we're continuing to add services there, and we're looking at how we do that outside our borders in addition to that. And then number five, the fifth growth pillar is our newest one, which is all around post-trade. And the post-trade piece, again, what's going to happen in 2025, we're on track for actually taking our post-trade modernization platform to go live later next month, provided we get the regulatory approvals, and that's the end of what will be a $150 million 6-year investment to modernize all the infrastructure or post-trade in Canada. And what it's going to do is it's actually going to allow us to turbocharge to new products where we can actually provide solutions for firms that we never could before. So we launched 2, for example, one called Secured General Collateral notes last year and Collateral Management Services through CDS. Both these get supercharged with the capabilities that we're going to put in place with that platform. So CDS has historically been one of a business we said it's kind of one of our market growth businesses, kind of low growth economy. There's going to be a chance for us to rerate that in terms of higher growth levels as we add new services to it that are outside of that core regulated utility bucket. So those are the 5 themes that we're excited about. There's a lot that we have to deliver this year to make it work, like driving AlphaX, driving the CDS modernization strategy and continuing to modernize the platform at Trayport.

John, your second point there, you did 2 acquisitions of index providers last year. VettaFi, iNDEX Research. What is the underlying thesis there? And what is also the connectivity to your core exchange business?

Yes. It's such a good question. So the underlying thesis was -- and our thesis and our strategy wasn't about acquiring. It was about building an index and benchmark franchise. And the reason we got engaged with VettaFi in the first place was actually in partnership -- excuse me for one second. So we were looking for a partner to help us build new indices. We partner with S&P to do our large market cap indices. But if you want to kind of bespoke, thematic, things like that, that's not the right partner for that. And so we started working with VettaFi and what could we do together. We quickly went down the road, that they were actually a firm that was looking for investment, we could help scale them up. So we invested them a little 2 years ago, so they could fund 2 acquisitions that they were doing and then very quickly moved to, we need to bring this whole franchise in-house and integrate it with us. And so the investment thesis in terms of as you talked about, how does it integrate with TMX given the client base we have in terms of ETF providers, we've got a natural client base to sell into. We have got data sets that are underutilized that VettaFi can help build in the index product for us. We've got clients that we can actually bring VettaFi's distribution tools to market as well. Because VettaFi is not just an index manufacturer, it actually has distribution analytic capabilities that are unique in this space. And we've already got 2 large asset managers in Canada that have taken us up on that and are using our web properties to promote their products now through those channels. So there's all kinds of intersection points. But the fact that you think about in the art of the possible, I can potentially take data from Trayport in the future, run it through a custom index we create in VettaFi, put it into an ETF OE list and then an option in the Montreal Exchange and clear and settle the whole thing. Like there's the potential for full system opportunity here that's really unique. And so with that, we do have a strategy of continuing to build out the index and benchmark space, and that will be both in the geographies we want to serve. And also in the asset classes. So the -- as you said, the second acquisition we did, an organization called iNDEX Research based out of Tel Aviv, very strong in the region for both regional indices but also global indices for some different European marketplaces, and that gave us 2 things. It gave us another set of index capabilities, phenomenal team doing it. We get it completely integrated into the VettaFi, but we now have the ability to support in time zone European manufacturers at the same time. And so that gives a beachhead to build out into Europe.

So today, post those deals, do you feel like you're missing any capabilities? Or are there any significant product gaps out there you'd like to address?

Well, we're never going to be done. So there's always going to be gaps. I'd say the next thing for us because most of what we've done has been equity based. So it's all thematic indices, but still equity markets. We want to build and be into fixed income. I think there's a market opportunity there, both in U.S. and Canada. That could be a build, but that could be an investment as well that could accelerate it. Long term, we are thinking about how do we do some more [ signings ] in commodities. I think we would have the potential to even potentially to do things like crypto indices as well to create another potential source for those types of prices. So there's a whole host of ideas that we've got. And candidly, we can build them, but there also will be investment opportunities to us to accelerate and go faster.

So I wanted to dive a little deeper into Trayport. Trayport had back-to-back 20% growth years in a row here. There was an idiosyncratic macro sort of step, which maybe sort of benefited a little bit, but we want to better understand the sustainability of the growth out of Trayport?

Yes, it's interesting. We've always -- ever since we bought it, and for those who don't know, this is a great business, but it wasn't growing this way when we acquired it. It didn't move from owner to owner. It's kind of growing 5%, 6%. And we immediately started looking at where could we invest more to go faster. And ever since then, we've grown it were kind of 11 to -- I'm going to just do it in pounds. So it was 17% in pounds, so that you don't overpromise me with the 20%. That would be the Canadian exchange adjusted amount. There are a number of factors in there. And -- it's really driven by continued client usage, client expansion, adding new clients, existing clients expanding their use of the product and their shop. And as we talked earlier, expanding in other geographies and services. So all those pieces are complementary. You definitely see the step up in the actual license subscribers that are using the product, but we're also selling more data and analytics, we're selling more algorithmic trading on the platform, et cetera, et cetera. And we expect that to continue. And so I'm not going to say if it's [ 11% ] or 17% for this year, but we continue to commit to this being that, that high-growth kind of double-digit growth franchise. Because the underlying conditions continue to be really strong. We're continuing to add new clients. And even in the core market of Europe, where we do a very strong player for European gas and power, that market's got real secular tailwinds behind it now. The energy sector is a growth sector. You've got new distribution, you've got new supply coming on, and you've got more price volatility. That brings more traders to the market. And they can be new firms, they can be offshoots of old firms, but that client base continues to grow. And then when you add to that, the fact that in other geographies, you have potential for outsized growth, the U.S., the Japanese power market and the global oil market, those are accelerants beyond what we could do in Europe.

Great. Now in our U.S. exchange coverage, there's sort of 2 camps forming right now, and it's not even now it's been over the last decade. But there's exchanges that are pivoting into info service FinTech software businesses. And there's other exchanges that say, we want to be in exchange and they end up being very defensive businesses. Where do you want to position your business longer term?

Are you asking where do we position it when we put within your coverage?

I'm saying -- but relative to those camps, where do you see TMX heading over the next 5 years. In which camp? Or is it in the middle?

It is somewhere in the middle because I actually don't think it's a [ fuller ] piece. I think it's really -- the exchange business in terms of the role that we play in the economies that we support is extremely important. And you're right to be able to do other things has got to be based on continuing to invest and being a world-class player in your core franchise. So the fact that we have 3,000-plus issuers, multiple trading venues, derivatives platform that has a lot of growth potential in the still, we're going to keep investing in that. But at the same time, we are looking to transition and transform the overall business mix. And so where we're investing for the outside growth is in data, information services, analytical tools and solutions. And so that's very much our GSIA segment. It's now 44% of our revenue. Our objective is to have more than half of the revenue in that segment and then drive our recurring revenue in the franchise to essentially 2/3. Doing that makes the business not only strong and growth-oriented but substantially more resilient. And when you think about how the different parts of the business can work in different economies, you only have to point to last year. So last year, 17% top line for us, 10% organic in, again, one of the slowest capital raising markets. So we weren't getting the value that you could get potentially at a capital formation, and we're still doing 10%. Now imagine you're transforming into another market where you've got more market certainty and companies coming to market, that's a chance to even lift the boat even further. When capital raising is soft, it's usually because there's volatility, the trading businesses are strong. And so we have some natural assets there. The derivatives business last year was very strong. I expect this year even stronger in terms of strong double-digit on both the activity levels and even higher growth on the revenue levels. And I think the growth actually in the first month of this year, I know you never want to use the 1 month for a trend, but I'll take a 36% to start the year anytime. I will send -- I guess this one, I have to send Trump a little thank you card as well for creating some volatility. But that being said, I do believe, and we all believe in our team that having a better balanced business model just creates a higher quality organization, and you can never lose fact though that, that core responsibility we have to keep investing in the raw core equity market is important because that's actually your brand and your reputation for everything else you want to do.

Can you talk a little bit more about your U.S. expansion plans? How critical is that to the vision?

Important -- I mean it's not critical, but it's really important and really is important is because there's no reason why we can't start to build out more and more of the TMX franchise like we have in Canada and the U.S. market. So that whole piece that we just talked about, the importance of investing in your core. The nice thing about -- nice thing and the challenging thing about being in Canada, maybe right across the border is we've always had to compete with U.S. venues. Our markets always have to be as fast as deep and diverse in terms of capabilities, priced competitively, both for cross-border activity, but also for frankly, Cboe and NASDAQ operating directly in Canada. And so we've proven that we can compete with these venues. And what we're doing in the U.S. is twofold. I heard a good step of saying that what the U.S. was really looking for was a 30-second market. Because you only had [ 31 ] and so we thought we could provide that. But the real piece we looked at is where do we have unique capabilities that actually solve client problems. And so in Canada, we were doing work on how we improve execution quality. We added new venues to do that. And we saw that market opportunity in the U.S. as well in terms of how we could help our collective clients to do better. And so that launch the AlphaX U.S. launch was candidly, less than 18 months from idea to actually being a live market. So it did a number of things for us. First of all, it proves out the thesis that we could add a higher quality execution venue. It shows that we've got the capability to build on de novo market from scratch with success and attract client volume to it immediately. And that includes both building out tech, doing all the regulatory approvals, adding new clients, connectivity testing and going live. And now we've been live with active trading for several weeks now exceeding expectations in terms of early volume. But the third thing it did for us is it actually created the opportunity to essentially be a test bed or a live market opportunity to try out the next generation of our technology. So we are an organization that provides our own trading systems. We build them ourselves. We have an equity platform that we've built over years, and we've got an options and futures platform that we built over years, what we've done in this new market is we've actually taken the best of breed of each of them. So we've used the high-speed architecture of the derivatives platform. With the DNA of an equity platform in terms of the rules that you need to be able to have to support the industry and some of the high-end execution quality rules we created for institutional trading. We combine them together. We delivered it through an Amazon AWS platform. So it's a cloud -- fully cloud-delivered market on NextGen technology. And that's giving us a live market chance to actually iron out kind of challenges, bugs, where are there throughput issues or scale challenges. And as we do that, that's going to be the DNA that we're going to take back to our Canadian market to be the next generation of technology that we will use for equities and options and futures going forward. And we just laid out that road map with our Board in terms of how we keep continuing to reinvest in these platforms and allow us to go to NextGen. So in that way, it's got multiple points where it's really important. But I always want to iterate the business case for our U.S. platform was a stand-alone business case. We believe that if we can operate it at scale at low cost, it doesn't take much more than a point or 2 to market share for it to be a very profitable venue for us.

Is there a component that's importing interest into Canadian symbols from U.S. investors? Or is the primary goal here really to develop that liquidity in U.S. symbols? .

The primary is to develop it in U.S. symbols. But we do recognize we have a number of symbols that are cross-border, and we have a number of clients that are cross-border. So the initial stage right now is really building that core liquidity. And then we're already getting engaged with the clients for new functionality. They'd like to see us build on top. And given that we're building this with clients on both sides of the border, those are strategies we can look at in the future. But you've got to prove that you could do it with liquidity on a regular basis first because we want other clients to connect. And so we've got initial clients that are on board. And as people see the liquidity is there, we'll bring more clients on.

Got it. And does the regulatory backdrop changing in the U.S. open up any opportunities for you?

I'm not sure if it's any different than it was before. We're a well-regarded player in the U.S. regulatory world. We're not an unknown. We're -- while we are foreign, we're not as foreign. We've been operating as an owner of the BOX market for years. BOX runs on our technology as well. So it's an area where we're actually going to invest more in that regulatory relationship with the SEC for TMX as a whole as we go. I mean, at the end of the day, when I took this job about 5 years ago, I went on to believe that -- you've got to have deep trusting relationships with all your core regulators. I've made that a point of what I do. Every quarter, I meet with every primary regulator I've got, and we're going to start building that kind of relationship in the U.S. as well.

I know a few years ago, you were very forward thinking and potentially putting spot crypto on your exchange.

I hope I was still forward thinking.

Specifically in crypto. I guess, is now that the regulatory backdrop in crypto has changed so much. Could that potentially be back on the table?

Yes. I mean it could. But now it's the question, does the market need the same? So what's changed since then, is the adoption of crypto ETFs on both sides of the border has made it so much more accessible in the retail audience that the client demand to actually have crypto on exchange isn't the same as what it was then. Because that was really driven by large dealers, bank dealers that wanted to be the vehicle to provide crypto to their clients. They're not asking us to do that anymore because they're doing that through ETF product. So, yes from a regulatory standpoint, the potential could be there, but it's got to be driven by client demand.

Got it. Let's switch gears to your listing business. Your 3,500 listed companies is more than both NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange. What are the biggest reasons that companies come to list on your exchange versus the competitors?

So the biggest differentiator there is that we operate a 2-tiered ecosystem venture exchange to senior exchange that is essentially unique in the world. It doesn't exist in the U.S. market. And what that means is that we can actually take a company public, we can take a $10 million company public. You would never do that in the U.S. market. And some people ask, well, why would a company want to do that, that's really a time that they should be private. And there's lots of reasons why they would do that because, in some cases, the company actually has more ownership of their destiny than if they have concentration of owners of a few funds. The market actually operates as a hybrid. It's a hybrid between private and public equity. Almost all the financing that gets done in the venture market is private equity financing on a public exchange. Probably 85% of the financing is private equity on exchange. With the liquidity of the public market. So it's a very unique model. But what it allows us to do is, even in the last year, senior market, we had 1 IPO in the senior market. But we brought almost 100 companies to the market on the junior exchange. And those junior companies, while they might not come through IPOs, they can come from direct other listings, direct listings, qualifying transactions, reverse takeovers, capital pool companies. There's lots of different vehicles, they grow with us over time. And so rather than doing private rounds of financing that we can do it on the public market as they grow. And when they are of size, we help them be ready and graduate up to the senior market. Now and again, we graduated a number of companies up to the senior market. We brought more companies to the senior market last year through graduation than through IPOs or other direct listings. So it's a great feeder system all the way up. And to the point where we've had about 800 companies that have come to the senior market over the last 20 years that came through this junior route. So that's what makes us unique because we can take companies early stage and we can really be with them through their entire life cycle. The main index for Canada, 20% plus of that index is companies have started as these junior microcap companies and then grew through their life cycle with us.

How do you think about the competition from the U.S. exchanges coming into Canada? What's the defensive strategy there?

The biggest area where they can compete well in Canada is on core equity trading. And it's like the same as the U.S. market. That's the place where the barriers of entry are the lowest and you can set up a platform. As I said earlier, both NASDAQ and Cboe are already in Canada. They both came in through acquisitions. The strategy has generally been to put their platform on to the Canadian market, run it very efficiently. But they're not -- it's not really materially growing those things. They tend to be 15 kind of market share kind of businesses. Where we manage to retain 60-plus market share the whole time. The challenge is a couple of things is we're not going to -- just because there's large players coming doesn't mean we're going to seed ground. We're always trying to innovate, provide new technology, new features, new product, new solutions to ensure that we are the best venue for trade. Now that being said, these guys can do other things as well. NASDAQ has not. I think they recognize that moving into the listing market is really hard because there are barriers. And those barriers are things like the close. Most liquidity at the close is in the close of the listing venue that means it's with us. The index, if you want to be an index eligible company on the composite index, they need to be listed with us. And so that's a gravity of pulling those companies to us. Plus we have the deepest liquidity. We have the deepest liquidity and the biggest breadth of data distribution. So if you're a company that wants to get the most visibility as possible, you're going to list with us to do that. And that's actually why we've won so many of the ETF listings. ETF listing is the easiest listing to put on another marketplace, and we're doing about 97% or 98% of all the AUM Canadian ETFs is listed with us with over 1,000 of them now. Now because we have the best distribution. And we can actually show them that they're going to get the best reach, the best data following, the best pushout to the wealth audience by doing that. The other areas are even harder. I mean, the competitive moats are even more challenging for people to come into. Our derivatives franchise options and futures is designed like a CME, so it's a vertical. We are self-regulated, we clear for ourselves. The products are our IP, they're not fungible. And so that's a very big barrier for someone to build a competing platform even if you've got the capabilities like those strong players do. They would have to figure out how to regulate it, how to clear it and how to get actually people to put capital against it. And so you'll see that they haven't done that. And so we think that low domestic position is really strong, but we never want to take it for granted, always ensure we're providing the best possible service.

John, what do you see as the major market structure and regulatory differences between the cash equity markets in Canada and the U.S?

I mean it really is the fact that we could do a junior listed market. Like when it comes to the large cap market, they're largely interoperable. Our rules -- rule sets are very similar I know our commissions, as we talk to them, are always very close to what the SEC is doing. We want to make sure there's not a lot of arbitrage between them. You've had discussions in the U.S. around access fee caps. We already have lower rebate fees on our non-interlisted stocks. So when our inter-listed stocks, which is kind of the top 200 companies listed in both markets, structure is almost exactly the same. There are a few areas where we see where the rules of structure in the U.S. is actually better particularly things of like covering short positions, ensuring you've got locates, things like that. We've been pushing for those rules to get imported into the Canadian market, particularly to protect small companies from aggressive shorting activity but largely harmonized. And the place where you really see the biggest difference is, in fact, that in that junior market that we talked about -- we take the approach of what I'll call proportionate regulation. So the regulatory structure of the junior market is not the same tiers what you'd have on a TSX or NYSE or NASDAQ. So the disclosure rules are different. They're lighter and recognizes these are earlier-stage companies. So all of that makes it easier for a company to go public in an early stage, and it's a different risk profile for the investor, and they know that going in. And so that would be the biggest change.

In terms of operating leverage, how do you think about balancing investing for growth versus operating leverage? How should we expect the margin to trend and a positive revenue growth environment?

The -- so rather than targeting an actual margin target, what we target is enterprise growth over the long term, what we call kind of strong growth, which is kind of 5% to 7% we have been outperforming that and expect to continue to outperform it and double-digit EPS growth. And so that's where the operating leverage comes in because our cost base is largely fixed but for where we choose to invest. So there's not a lot of variable cost growth as we build the franchise. So over time, with that kind of that mid- to high single top line growth, maintaining the cost base, driving the double-digit EPS to get that margin expansion there over the cycle. Now there can be times where that's plus or minus because of some investment activity or because we get some secular pieces that drive the revenue in a quarter-to-quarter. So we always drive it over the long term. What we try to do on the cost piece is those controllable costs, those choices, we're looking to manage the cost base kind of to inflation. That's kind of where we want to cap it out. So -- you think about what's in our cost pool, it's our talent organization is largely 60% of our cost base, our technology and SG&A. And I'm going to touch to those 3, particularly because I'm almost going to ask you just to look outside of D&A because D&A, that's going to step up this year, and it's going to step up because we're going to take our post-trade modernization investment we've been doing for 6 years, $150 million to do that investment, we're going to start depreciating this year. So actual cash expenses to run that platform are going to decline but our overall costs are going to increase because the amortization is going to come on the books. We're replacing 25-year-old systems. They don't have any amortization on them. So apples-to-apples, core expenses, we're trying to manage that kind of an inflation or less basis. And the way we do that in terms of actually driving for growth at the same time is we actually use target challenges all through the organization. Everyone's got targets to look at. And where they're looking to do step change investments, we look for cost savings to offset them. Every single year, we've got multimillion dollars worth of cost saving challenges built into the firm right into our plan to help fund where we want to add growth. And where we need to step outside that for higher order growth, like we did with the AlphaX U.S. project is we've just come to the street and say, listen, we're going to do a step change here, and we're going to commit to higher growth for the firm. But that is going to be a rarity. Most of the things we can do from our run rate.

So let's start talking about retail trading. There's been a lot of noise in Canada recently. [ Webull ] recently launched in Canada I think could expect to go launch pretty soon. There's several brokers now with commission-free trading. What's your thought on the future retail trading in Canada?

I'm really excited about that. Because this is starting to bring -- and there's always some good platforms in Canada that have been doing that, the Wealthsimple of the world. But the more we see these retail-directed platforms that are trying to differentiate themselves and provide more access to the market. The more you can pull more retail in. Again, it's going to be another one of those pieces that is a strong tailwind behind building the ETF franchise even more because that -- those products tend to do really well on these types of platforms. But that's what I'd say. It just brings more retail liquidity in. I think it will help with an organization for us as well with something that we'd like to develop, which is, the retail option side in Canada isn't anywhere near as developed as it is in the U.S. Because a lot of the Canadian platforms, they don't sell options necessarily easily alongside the equities, the way you would in the U.S. market. So having platforms come that know how to do that and make that ready available to clients is only going to add more liquidity to the option franchise. And like any market, liquidity begets more liquidity. So I do think that could have a real healthy lift particularly for the option platform.

How much does the retail channel essentially contribute to your bottom line, your profits today? And then if you think about growth, it's probably a bigger piece of growth in the future. But how do you think of the percentage coming in terms of growth?

Like in today, it's going to be -- I mean, it's going to be a smaller component because the retail trade is going to be anywhere 25%, 30% of the equity trade in a very limited amount of the derivatives trade. And equity trading is one of the smallest segments of our franchise. That's not a big piece of who pays for the real-time data. So it's going to be a smaller component. But, in terms of, like you said, fostering growth, more liquidity on the platform will help with other things along the way, the broad value of the data sets, the distribution and the interest in it. The interest of companies to raise money and go public if you've got a larger investor base to participate in those offerings, all are part of a healthy ecosystem that can help the rest of the franchise grow.

So at this moment, I just want to pause and see if there's any questions in the audience. If you have a question, please raise your hand. Right here front row, you can wait for the microphone, please.

Can you talk about where TMX is on its cloud journey? And I guess, have the primary benefits spend on the cost side? Or have clients take a notice on the improvements as well?

That's a great question. The reason I want that question because, we make a purpose of not making cloud announcements. We just do cloud business. But we really made our strategy a number of years ago what I'll call cloud first. So any new thing we were doing, we're looking to see how do we enable it from a cloud delivery standpoint right from day 1. And I'll take you through some of the pieces. We were probably one of the first shops to go entirely cloud for everything we do on productivity. So just in terms of how we run the business day to day, even before COVID, we were a full Google shop. We moved on to Workday, ServiceNow, all these different platforms that when it became time to actually run the marketplaces remotely, it was done without any difficulty whatsoever. And so it's part of the DNA of the franchise. And then where we've gone from there has actually been program by program specific. So everything we modernize has had a cloud delivery element, but not with a single provider. And that's a distinct choice that we've made. So we haven't said, you're a provider partner. We're doing 10 years with you, you're going to do everything because we don't want to put ourselves in a position where we are beholden to a single technology provider in any part of the franchise. Let alone something that is core is the hosting. So for example, all the front end for the listings part, the listing activity we do is all now delivered through Salesforce cloud. All the IP and the workflow automation is our automation on top. And it means that any issuer, any filing they're doing can be done electronically, all workflows done electronically as well, and it makes that business completely scalable. So when the business spikes when you have a lot of activity like we had in 2021, we can do that with the same workforce because it's a scale model. Similarly, all of our data programs our deep data lake, data analytics platform, all delivered through AWS. Our new platform that we just launched in the U.S. as said, AWS Outposts. So not public cloud, private cloud because you want to be able to actually have control that environment in terms of the access to it, but it does make it scalable. The index factory, so the VettaFi business we talked about earlier, the index factory, as we call it, we have a very scalable technology platform that allows us essentially infinite capability of making more indices. That's also cloud delivered with infinite scalability. So as soon as we need more capacity to run larger and more complex indices, it's as literally as easy as going on the screen and moving the dial, and we have more capacity to do that. And so that service piece then goes straight down to the client in terms of our ability to actually move faster and deliver more product. The last example I'll give you is in Trayport. We've got a project in Trayport which we call JD 2.0, which is the next generation of the entire platform. We also call it Project Theseus. So it's named after the mythical ship theseus. And if you heard the story of the ship, this is a ship that during this voyage was so damaged every part of the ship was eventually replaced. And then the question is when they get to the end of the voyage it's still the same ship. And so that kind of give you a sense of what we're doing. So we are taking the whole omnibus architecture of what we do in Trayport. We are taking it out of that omnibus structure. We are building it in modules which is going to allow us to plug and play changes if we need to do something new for a broker clients, we can do it just in that module. We don't have to do the entire architecture anymore. And that whole thing will be cloud delivered at the end. AWS as the partner to do that. And so that piece is going to allow us to be way more responsive to the clients, particularly as we're working more with brokers because we want to bring oil brokers on board. We only need to touch what we need to do to actually meet their needs. There's no impact to them because we're not touching their front end at all. And it's all cloud delivered, so we can actually scale it as we need to. And so that's I hope good examples of how we're trying to use it. We did also look at the larger program should we just take everything to have and stick it in the cloud? And candidly, there's just no business case to do that right now. For now, we will continue to run our core infrastructure on our own data centers where we control them. The cost benefit to making that change isn't there yet, but it could be there in a couple of years as these technologies continue to advance. I hope that helps.

Great. And with that, we are out of time. So John, on behalf of all of us at Bank of America, thank you very much for joining.

Yes. Thank you. Appreciate it.