Selling the Index Business: What Is TASE Actually Considering Selling
This is not a sale of TASE's whole data business. The company is exploring a transaction around the index engine, which generated NIS 31.8 million in 2025 and sat behind NIS 147.3 billion of assets tracking TASE indices. That could open an international distribution path, but it also touches exactly the revenue layer that helps make the group less cyclical.
What Is Actually On The Table
The main article already argued that TASE finished 2025 with unusually strong operating leverage, but that the real 2026 test would be the quality of recurring revenue. This follow-up isolates only the index thread and asks one narrower question: when TASE says it is considering a sale of the index activity, what exactly sits inside that activity, and what would remain if a deal is actually signed.
The first point is that the disclosures do not describe a sale of the whole information business. TASE defines the index activity as the editing and calculation of four groups of investment indices: equity indices, corporate-bond indices, bond indices, and government-bond indices. Beyond that, it also runs open indices for external index editors and custom-built indices for specific tracking-fund managers. Those indices then serve as the basis for ETFs, tracking mutual funds, and derivative instruments, including over-the-counter swap transactions. That is the core engine.
By contrast, data distribution and connectivity are disclosed separately. That bucket includes real-time and delayed market-data feeds, business and private customers, data files, communication lines, and hosting services. That distinction matters because it draws a boundary. The reasonable read from the local evidence is that the table does not include the whole data and connectivity business, but first and foremost the index engine inside it. That is already a very different question from selling the full data franchise.
The revenue split points in the same direction. Within data distribution and connectivity services, TASE breaks out three key components: data distribution, connectivity services, and authorization for indices usage. In 2025 the index-usage line alone was already NIS 31.8 million. That is about 30% of the segment and about 6% of TASE's total revenue.
That is not the whole business, but it is no longer a side line either. More importantly, it is a relatively clean revenue stream. TASE states that income from indices usage is recognized over the current year, while other data lines are recognized either monthly or at a point in time. In other words, anyone reading this transaction as just another asset sale is missing the real tension. This is a modest line in group terms, but it sits squarely inside the layer that makes TASE less exposed to daily trading volumes.
Why The Timing Is Convenient For TASE
The second point is that this process did not open while the activity was still proving itself. It opened after a sharp acceleration. Revenue from authorization for indices usage rose from NIS 3.2 million in 2022 to NIS 10.2 million in 2023, NIS 25.1 million in 2024, and NIS 31.8 million in 2025. Within data distribution and connectivity, the index share climbed from 5.5% to 30.1% in three years.
That is the number that explains why a sale is a real temptation now. TASE is not looking at a line that still needs a business model. It is looking at a line that has already become meaningful and looks monetizable at exactly the point when its economics appear strongest.
The 2025 bridge sharpens that point further. Data distribution and connectivity revenue rose 17%, from NIS 90.8 million to NIS 105.9 million. Of that increase, NIS 6.8 million came from authorization for indices usage. In other words, close to half of the segment's absolute growth in 2025 came from the index line.
That is the heart of the issue. If the transaction includes the licensing economics of the indices, TASE would not just be touching an existing recurring stream. It would be touching the component that supplied almost half of the segment's annual growth.
The company is also explicit about what drove that growth: higher index-usage revenue was mainly the result of higher AUM in ETFs and tracking funds that follow TASE indices. By year-end 2025, assets tracking TASE indices reached NIS 147.3 billion, including NIS 90.9 billion in equity indices and NIS 56.4 billion in bond and T-bill indices.
| Tracking-asset layer at year-end 2025 | Value |
|---|---|
| Equity indices | NIS 90.9 billion |
| Bond and T-bill indices | NIS 56.4 billion |
| Total | NIS 147.3 billion |
That is the economic base of the process. TASE is not discussing the sale of a brand name or a formula. It is discussing an activity that already sits behind a large, growing, monetized asset base.
Sale And Strategic Collaboration Are Not The Same Economic Outcome
This is where the nuance matters. In June 2025 the board authorized management to examine three possibilities: a partial sale, a full sale, or a partnership with a leading international entity. In September 2025, TASE signed an engagement with Jefferies to support the strategic process, including a success-based fee, expense reimbursement, and an indemnity arrangement that is not limited in amount or duration. In January 2026 the wording became even tighter: the company disclosed that it is actively negotiating a transaction for the sale of the index activity and a strategic collaboration with a significant international entity.
The fact that the January disclosure bundles together "sale" and "strategic collaboration" is what prevents a simplistic reading. If TASE were only trying to cash out an asset, the wording could have been much narrower. Instead, the disclosure keeps an international collaboration component explicitly on the table. That suggests the process may be not only a monetization event, but also a distribution choice.
Without final terms, no one can state what the structure will be. What the filings do allow is a disciplined map of what each disclosed direction would mean:
| Disclosed route | The reasonable economic reading |
|---|---|
| Partial sale | Allows TASE to monetize part of the value now without necessarily surrendering all future participation |
| Full sale | Maximizes the up-front monetization angle, but also raises the hardest question about the quality of what remains |
| Strategic collaboration | Suggests that part of the value may sit in international distribution, branding, and a larger tracked-asset base, not only in cash proceeds |
That table is not a forecast. It simply clarifies why the market cannot decide in advance that this is either clearly good or clearly bad. Everything depends on what TASE would still own economically after the deal. If an international partner really broadens distribution, launches new tracked products, and expands the asset base behind TASE indices, the move could improve the quality of the franchise. If, by contrast, the company simply sells out a relatively clean licensing stream without retaining enough participation, TASE could end up exchanging recurring quality for one-time cash.
What The Market Still Needs To See
At this stage the disclosures stop exactly where the real economics begin. The company is clear that there is no certainty a binding agreement will be signed, no certainty about final terms, and no certainty that completion would occur even if a binding agreement is signed. Any binding agreement would also require board approval. So the market still cannot write proceeds into the cash line, but it also cannot conclude that the recurring revenue is already gone.
What is missing is not another headline. It is four concrete answers:
- What is the actual perimeter of the activity being sold or partnered: only licensing rights, or also methodology, brand, calculation, and operations.
- What part of recurring economics stays with TASE: ongoing royalties, revenue sharing, an annual minimum, or something much thinner.
- What the international partner is expected to bring in practice: distribution, new tracked products, foreign-market reach, or mainly monetization of an existing domestic base.
- What TASE would do with the proceeds if there are any: strengthen the balance sheet, return capital, buy back more shares, or reinvest in infrastructure and new engines.
The main article showed that 63% of TASE's revenue in 2025 already came from non-transactional layers. The index line sits right inside that shift. So the real question here is not whether the index activity has value. It is whether management can turn that value into a longer growth runway, or whether it chooses to monetize it too early.
That is the continuation's bottom line: TASE is not exploring the sale of its whole data business. It is exploring a transaction around an index engine that has grown quickly, become material inside the non-transactional layer, and can now go in one of two directions: scale through an international partner, or shrink into a one-off monetization event. Without the structure, this is not yet an upside story and not yet a hole story. It is a quality-of-earnings story.
Disclosure: Deep TASE analyses are general informational, research, and commentary content only. They do not constitute investment advice, investment marketing, a recommendation, or an offer to buy, sell, or hold any security, and are not tailored to any reader's personal circumstances.
The author, site owner, or related parties may hold, buy, sell, or otherwise trade securities or financial instruments related to the companies discussed, before or after publication, without prior notice and without any obligation to update the analysis. Publication of an analysis should not be read as a statement that any position does or does not exist.
The analysis may contain errors, omissions, or information that changes after publication. Readers should review official filings and primary sources before making decisions.