Suzanne McGee
(Reuters) – The Texas Stock Exchange (TSXE) has been a few months since gaining regulatory approval to start operations, and has said it has hired executives from funds traded on CBOE Global Market and NASDAQ senior exchanges to win trades in the $11 trillion U.S. ETF market.
On Thursday, Robert Marrocco, a former global head of ETP or CBOE Global Markets listing, announced that he would assume the same roles at TXSE and Alison Hennessy, former head of NASDAQ's ETP listings.
Hiling shows that the Texas exchange sees ETF arena as key to future growth, analysts said.
“The fact that they poach top talent from two of the three biggest exchanges takes a clear signal as a future competitor in the ETF sector seriously,” said Brian Armour, ETF strategist at Morningstar.
TXSE announced it had raised about $161 million in capital from around four dozen investors, including financial giants BlackRock, Citadel Securities and Charles Schwab, and filed paperwork in late January seeking regulatory approval to operate the national stock exchange. We hope to gain approval later this year and start trading with lists in early 2026.
Not only will Hirings strengthen the TXSE roster, it could create challenges for incumbent exchanges, said one market structure analyst who asked his company not to name him to not allow him to comment publicly. In rapidly growing regions such as ETFs, it is “less than ideal” to lose top executives to potential rivals, analysts said.
“Together, these leaders controlled all 40% of the US (exchange trade products),” the Texas Exchange said in a press release.
A NASDAQ spokesman declined to comment on Hennessy's departure.
“We hope they are well in their future efforts,” Cboe said in a statement, referring to Marrocco and two other CBOE staff who also hired TXSE.
TXSE said in a press release that under Marrocco's leadership since 2020, Cboe has won nearly 30% of all new ETP lists.
As Marrocco did not respond to requests for comment, a TXSE spokesman said neither he nor Hennessy could discuss their new role. In a LinkedIn post, he described TXSE as “the next chapter in the US capital markets.”
Marrocco's employment “indicating that TXSE can prioritize ETP lists, indicating that it is a relatively less competitive tool compared to individual stock lists,” said Owen Lau, senior analyst at Oppenheimer & Co.
