Cyprus is putting its 30-year-old stock exchange up for tender, with Tel-Aviv and Athens the names to watch.
By Global Ayalon Investments
The Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange is weighing a bid for the Cyprus Stock Exchange, according to media reports. Cyprus has yet to publish the tender, and the Tel-Aviv exchange’s management and board will decide only once its threshold conditions are known.
Whoever wins will inherit a small market and the obligation to grow it. Cyprus’s parliament passed the privatisation law unanimously in February 2026, and the winning bidder must sign a binding five-year plan for developing the island’s securities market.
The competition is warming up
Tel-Aviv may face competition from Athens. The CSE has shared a trading and clearing platform with Athens since 2006, and in November 2025 Euronext took about 74% of the Athens exchange, which now trades as Euronext Athens. Bank of Cyprus, the island’s largest listed company, has left the London Stock Exchange and is now listed in Athens and Nicosia.
Euronext would mean deeper integration with the European Union and a direct line to Europe’s largest exchange group. Tel-Aviv would give Israeli and technology companies a new listing venue in the euro zone, and Israeli investors easier access to investing in Cypriot companies.
The privatisation comes with strict conditions attached. It covers the exchange, the Central Depository and the Central Securities Register, all sold through a special-purpose company. Bidders must first pass a test of their equity, revenue and profitability over three years. Price then carries 70% of the score and quality 30%, and the five-year plan becomes part of the sale contract. The state, meanwhile, may retain a stake, and CySEC remains the regulator.
A small exchange in a growing economy
The CSE is state-owned and modest in size. Estimates put its value at €20–40 million, with annual revenue of €4–7 million. Its trading is thin and concentrated: according to the exchange’s own July 2026 bulletin, average daily turnover was €0.37 million, against €1.38 million in 2024, and Bank of Cyprus alone accounted for 71% of the value traded.
Foreign investors already hold about 38% of the market’s value, according to the CSE chairman’s 2025 year-end review. An economy that was rebuilding its banks after 2013 is now selling its exchange by tender, to owners who must commit to growing it.
Cyprus is gaining traction as a financial centre in the Eastern Mediterranean, and Tel-Aviv’s interest in its exchange, even at this early stage, is a sign of it. A deeper capital market would add to the island’s sources of growth and revenue beyond banking and property. Investors tend to find better entry points before a trend is confirmed than after, and a tender of this kind could well be that early signal.
The Israeli angle
Economic ties between Israel and Cyprus have been tightening for years, so far through real estate and technology relocation. Should Tel-Aviv bid and win, the exchange would add a financial tie.
Global Ayalon Investments keeps a close eye on the Cypriot economy, and helps Israeli investors find the right business counterparts on the island. For the wider picture, read The Island That Keeps Growing.
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Cover image: photo by Tima Miroshnichenko, courtesy of pexels.com, used under the free Pexels licence.
This article is general information and does not constitute legal, tax or investment advice.