It very well might be a listings play, but I have yet to see any new venue really crack the "listings code". IEX has tried. I guess CBOE BATS has had some success? LTSE wants too as well, but not sure they had success either.
My understanding is they were shooting for ETF listings, which are arguably the easiest listings business to establish in if you have the right sales team (due to the lighter regulatory regime compared to listing common stock).
They were also making a play at trying to capture listings for companies looking to reincorporate in TX (think of it as a 'social issue' campaign; same as what the LTSE guys are shooting for).
That all said, I definitely do not disagree with you. While I think they at least have more justification to launch a venue than MEMX did, I am highly skeptical of their ability to pull listings business away from NY. The Big Board and Nasdaq have it on lock.
Currently NASDAQ and NYSE have a stranglehold on this, to the extent that tech companies anywhere in the world are much more likely to list on NASDAQ in particular as opposed to their local market.
I'm not sure what the point of traditional exchanges are anymore. In 1890 it made sense to have a common place for the agents of everyone who want to trade to be in one room so that when you wanted to buy stock your agent could match you up with someone else who wants to sell. However computers can do that digitally these days and so all an exchange does is give rules (keeping the worst scam companies out)
The issue boils down more to consolidation of interest, and 'historical' thinking by people who can't be assed to understand how the market actually works.
Nasdaq and NYSE have significant volumes because people think they have significant volumes (as circular as that reasoning is). There are entire entities on the fund/investment management side of the industry that are content to do their entire risk adjustment (meaning, trading) in the closing auction, and the dominant closing auction is on the primary listing exchange (just because...well, as I highlighted above).
There was a brief period in the mid aughts when Nasdaq (through the INET and BRUT acquisitions) and BATS were able to compete with the more dominant NYSE due to monstrous discrepancies in system performance, but as all of the markets evolved over the last 15-20 years they are all (at least as far as the vast majority of market participants are concerned) effectively identical in pure technical performance.
Confusingly AMEX and ARCA also have a listings business, but that's also owned by NYSE or at least owned by ICE which owns NYSE.
IEX tried. I think they had a few listings for a while, but it just didn't work out.
LTSE really wanted to get into this business and I think they are trying by some sort of dual listing strategy, but I think that just costs the listing company even more fees and like... what's the point?
And as mentioned CBOE's BATS has a bunch. But I think they are just low volume four letter ETFs.
I think cracking the code would consist of offering a service that really solves a problem that the listing company's CFO or investor relations team has such that only the listing venue could solve.
At any rate, good luck to those who try, so far its just a trail of gravestones of those who tried and failed.
At least with AMEX you have the historical case for Tape B listings, and with ARCA the strong local ETF business.
LTSE is trying to be principled, but I see this similarly to the TXSE/NYSE TX thing where they're trying to capitalize on a cultural issue that is fleeting and the general public really doesn't care about.
Poor BZX has never really recovered from botching their own IPO. Similar to how Nasdaq lost a bunch of business to NYSE following the Facebook IPO fiasco. As a corporate board I imagine you'd really need to justify why you would take the extra risk of working with an unproven exchange when it comes to your first day of trading.
