TMX Unveils New Campaign and Pushes the Positives of Going Public
TMX has launched a branding campaign aimed at letting companies know exactly what they are capable of.
This effort from the Toronto-based market ecosystem is designed to show that TMX plays a vital part when it comes to the growth of the Canadian economy. TMX operates cash and derivative markets as well as listing and trading markets, and is perhaps most well-known for its stock exchanges, the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV).
Part of the role TMX plays comes from their efforts to inform companies about how powerful public equity can be for growth. If companies hold IPOs and list themselves on an exchange, they bring in new opportunities that funding from venture capitalists just cannot match.
“The first draw of public equity is access to capital from a broad pool of investors,” said Michael Kousaie, the head of business development at TMX. “Second is the profile and credibility that comes with being a public company. That can help attract customers, prospective employees and even leadership. Each of those is a stamp of approval.
“The final thing is that being a public company allows companies to grow and scale more quickly because they can access capital quicker and also use public shares as currency to find subsequent growth,” he added.
Recent trends, especially in the technology sector, have seen companies veer away from public equity and search for private investors. This option does have some benefits according to Kousaie, but it leads to many founders overlooking going public as a tangible option.
“There’s often a lack of awareness for smaller companies around going public. We remind them that while they can wait until they become a unicorn, they don’t have to,” he explained. “The other discussion is around the two-tiered market here, with both the TSX for big companies and the TSXV for smaller ones.”
TMX has seen a lot of success when it comes to companies taking the public equity route. It’s easy to focus in on the large companies that saw almost-instant billion dollar valuations, like Shopify, OpenText or Real Matters. There are also medium-sized companies like Kinaxis that went public when they were worth $350 million and saw immense growth over two years. Now they’re valued at nearly $2 billion.
Small companies can also get in on the action. Solium had an IPO for about $2 million on the TSXV, and is now worth close to $500 million, showing what public growth and influence can do.
“It’s abundantly clear that public markets can play a critical role in building the economy and overall business ecosystem,” said Kousaie.
To stay in line with this mentality, TMX unveiled “The Future is Yours to See,” a new marketing initiative geared towards both investors and companies. The phrase is meant to celebrate progress from any size organization within the TMX umbrella, while also staying in line with what the company does and how they continually instill innovation and opportunity to companies looking to utilize TMX’s suite of services.
“The new TMX is focused on the future, poised to seize on our positive momentum in the marketplace and in continuous pursuit of new ways to help convert the aspirations of our domestic and global client base into game-changing successes,” said Lou Eccleston, CEO of TMX Group.
Earlier this summer Michael Kousaie recapped the TSX’s performance so far this year, highlighting the growth of tech companies and large-cap IPOs. TMX’s new campaign will last a few months as it continues to try and drive both small and large companies towards the public option.
