The Tokyo Stock Exchange is on track to list its own shares in 2009, but capital tie-ups with other exchanges are unlikely before then as the bourse has no money for such investments, its president said on November 22.
Traders have been keen to see whether or when the TSE would take any more stakes in other exchanges, as bourses around the world have formed ties to share the cost of investing in new systems and to meet investor demand for a wider range of financial products.
TSE President and CEO Atsushi Saito said his bourse is unlikely to make any such moves until it goes public and raises some cash.
"We are not even listed and we don't have money to take stakes in other bourses," Saito told Reuters in an interview. "Any capital alliances will have to wait until after our capital structure is changed."
In June, the TSE said it had spent about $304 million to buy a 4.99 percent stake in the Singapore Exchange Ltd. That was its first stake in another exchange, although it has formed technology-sharing ties with both the London Stock Exchange and NYSE Group Inc.
The TSE is the world's second-largest bourse behind the NYSE, but it is struggling to maintain its competitiveness and keep up with other exchanges such as New York Stock Exchange as well as cosmopolitan Asian centres such as Singapore.