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Craig Donohue, who will take over as chief executive of Cboe Global Markets, successfully completed more than $20bn in mergers and acquisitions when he led CME Group, and will consider both organic and inorganic growth strategies.
Fredric Tomczyk, Cboe Global Markets
Fredric Tomczyk, chief executive of Cboe Global Markets, began the first quarter results call on 2 May 2025 by expressing support for the announced appointment of Craig Donohue as Cboe’s new chief executive. He said: “Donohue is a seasoned, visionary leader who brings a wealth of experience to the role and is deeply respected across the industry.”
On 1 May 2025 Cboe said in a statement that Donohue will replace Tomczyk as chief and a member of the board on 7 May 2025. Tomczyk will remain on the board and transition into an advisory role through the end of June 2025. Tomczyk added: “I look forward to working closely with him on a seamless transition and returning to my role as a non-employee director of the board.”
Donohue has more than 30 years of experience in the derivatives industry, including two decades at CME Group where he spent eight years as chief executive before departing in 2012. Donohue was previously chairman at OCC, the equity derivatives clearing organization, over the last decade where he also took on the role of chief executive between 2016 and 2019.
During his time at CME, Donohue led the successful completion of more than $20bn in mergers and acquisitions, including CME’s merger with the Chicago Board of Trade in 2007 and the acquisition of both the New York Mercantile Exchange and the Commodity Exchange Inc. in 2008.
Tomczyk said Cboe has built up a strong balance sheet and taken a very disciplined approach to capital allocation by sharpening its organic strategy and returning capital through dividends and opportunistic share repurchases.
“Obviously, we’re sitting on a fair bit of cash as everyone recognizes,” added Tomczyk. “I think the company’s in a good position to consider all of its options.”
Donohue will be very focused on growing the company, both organically and to a certain extent inorganically, and doing things that make strategic and financial sense, move the needle and create long-term value for shareholders, according to Tomczyk.
He argued that while volumes may fall from the exceptional levels seen in recent months, the market ecosystem remains healthy and supportive of volume growth moving forward so Cboe is well positioned for Donohue to take the reins
Tomczyk continued that the search for a successor has been going on for quite a while and has been discussed at every meeting during his time as CEO. Tomczyk described the process as very thoughtful and disciplined as they reviewed both internal and external candidates.
Craig Donohue, Cboe Global Markets
“We had certain characteristics we were looking for and Craig ticked those boxes with the combination of his global derivatives experience, his previous CEO experience, his strong track record of success and his reputation throughout the industry with regulators and shareholders,” Tomczyk added.
“When I moved from the board to CEO 18 months ago, my priorities were to stabilize the organization, sharpen our strategic focus, bring a more disciplined approach to capital allocation and leadership development and succession,” he added. “Together with the strong management team, we have achieved these goals, and I’m proud of the results we have delivered. We are now executing on an orderly and well planned CEO succession strategy.”
Volumes
Cboe reported record quarterly net revenue for the quarter of $565.2m, up 13% from a year ago which Tomczyk said was due to strong results from each business segment – derivatives, cash and spot markets, and Data Vantage.
There were strong volumes across index option products. Trading in Cboe’s S&P 500 Index (SPX) optionS increased 13% year-over-year, and in the mini SPX options rose 61%. Volumes across index and multi-list products remained elevated in April, as the tariff announcements created significant volatility and uncertainty in global markets, fuelling a robust start to the second quarter, according to Tomczyk.
Source: Cboe
Dave Howson, global president of Cboe Global Markets, said on the call that activity accelerated throughout the first quarter to produce record total options average daily volumes across Cboe’s four options exchanges due to heightened geopolitical volatility.
“Notably, we reached all-time, quarterly, monthly and single day volume in SPX during the first quarter,” Howson added. “Our mini SPX product reached a new quarterly record, and overall proprietary index options average daily volume achieved all-time quarterly and monthly highs.”
The growth in the SPX options franchise was led by a continued rise in zero days to expiry options trading due to the fast-moving nature of headlines coming from the U.S. administration and expanded access as retail broker Robinhood rolled out index options to all its customers in late January. Howson said zero days to expiry options volume increased 29% year-over-year in the first quarter and made up a record 55% share of overall SPX volume.
David Howson, Cboe Global Markets
“Robinhood came on board quicker than we expected, and the ramp up was greater than we’d expected,” added Howson.
He described the retail behavior as “remarkably disciplined” as 95% of the strategies they deploy when opening trades SBX zero days to expiry are have capped risk, where the maximum loss is known at the point of entry.
Howson continued that being able to trade in and out of risk at all hours of the day has become more important, especially as Cboe has expanded its customer base internationally. Volume in index options in Cboe’s global trading hours reached a record in the first quarter, up 36% year-over-year.
Over 253,000 SPX options traded during overnight hours on 27 January following the announcement of a new artificial intelligence model by Chinese firm Deepseek, and volumes were greater than during the November U.S. election. Howson said: “That record has since been broken multiple times in April as trade tensions escalated.”
There was also “encouraging growth’ in several new products, including bitcoin index options which launched in December, especially as 15 ETF issuers are using the bitcoin indexes in their strategies. In addition, Howson said there was a healthy uptick in Cboe’s investment grade and high yield corporate bond futures.
“Already in the second quarter, we’ve seen SPX volumes hit an all-time high of six million contracts on 4 April,” added Howson.
In the first quarter Cboe also completed the migration of its final equities exchange in Canada to Cboe Titanium, its proprietary exchange technology platform. All Cboe’s equities and derivatives markets across North America, UK, Europe, Australia and Japan are now running on Titanium, and Hpwson said the resiliency of the platform has been on full display in 2025 with record volumes and activity in many markets.
“On 7 April, we seamlessly processed over one trillion orders, quotes and market data events across our 27 global markets,” said Hpwson. “in today’s environment, having a globally consistent, locally optimized technology platform is a differentiated strength that will help Cboe to expand access to its market data, products and services to customers around the world.”
Source: Cboe
Asia Pacific
Tomczyk said there is significant opportunity in the Asia Pacific region, where there is growing demand for Cboe’s index and option products. Record Europe and APAC net revenue of $64.1m increased by 18% compared to the first quarter of 2024.
“We are an efficient and accessible way to gain exposure to the U.S. market,” he added. “We see a solid pipeline of clients in the region, and during the first quarter we onboarded new clients in Korea and Taiwan for our proprietary products.”
He argued that the Data Vantage business is key to helping our APAC customers gain access to U.S. markets, and there is also increased interest in the region for European market data.
“This reinforces the power of our global network to provide our customer base with the data and access they need across global markets,” added Tomczyk.
More than half, 55% of new data sales were outside the US. Howson said the group will be looking to lean into this trend with efforts to improve access to the US and European markets for global investors, increasing the APAC salesforce, adding more brokers in the region rounding out the market intelligence group with local expertise.
“Historically, we have seen customers increase data consumption ahead of implementing trading strategies in new markets,” said Howson. “In this case, international investors are analyzing and backtesting ahead of putting money to work in the US or Europe.”
Brokerage firms across the region, such as in Korea,Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia are onboarding to Cboe according to Howson.
“We’ve got boots on the ground and natural language speakers in a variety of countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, who will also travel within the region,” Howson said. “We’ve got marketing efforts, particularly digital channel marketing, that we’re really focusing on and seeing some good returns.”
Source: Cboe
Financials
Jill Griebenow, Cboe Global Markets
Jill Griebenow, chief financial officer of Cboe Global Markets, said on the call that derivatives net revenue grew 16% due to record trading volumes across its multi-listed and proprietary options products.
Record options net revenue of $352.4m was up 15% from the first quarter of 2024. Futures net revenue of $32.8m increased 8% from the first quarter of 2024.
Cash and spot markets net revenue increased 10% and Data Vantage reported 8% net revenue growth.
Griebenow said: “Moving forward, Cboe is increasing its organic total net revenue growth guidance range to mid to high single digits from mid single digits.”
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