Argentina’s top security and foreign-currency trading market, MAE, and Matba Rofex, the country’s leading future market, will merge into a new institution, which will be named A3.

MAE and Matba Rofex’s shareholders approved the merger on November 20 following two extraordinary meetings. The goal is “combining the strengths of the two institutions to consolidate itself as a modern and efficient market,” according to a communiqué.

MAE was launched in 1989, and it trades financial instruments such as fixed income, equities, foreign currencies, repo transactions, and derivatives, among others. Matba Rofex was created when Matba and Rofex, both founded in 1907, merged in 2019 and is Argentina’s main commodities, foreign currencies, and financial assets’ futures and options trading market. It also calculates and publishes financial and agricultural reference indexes.

According to the communiqué, the “A” in A3 refers to “Argentina,” and the three stands for the three “key actors in the local capital market” — MAE, Matba, and Rofex. The new trading market, A3, will offer “agricultural and financial products in both spot and futures and options trading, as well as bilateral and over-the-counter operations,” according to a press release. Operations are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2025.

Robert Olson, the head of MAE who will be nominated to chair A3, said the merger is “a crucial step for the growth of the Argentine capital market” that will enhance “liquidity and simplify trading processes.” Andrés Ponte, current director of Matba Rofex and A3’s future vice-president, said the new trading market will be a step towards “the consolidation of the Argentine capital market.”

“The integration will accelerate the development of the local capital markets, adding the best of both entities,” said Diego Fernández, who will be the CEO of A3. “We will provide greater efficiency and better technology to our users and greater value to our shareholders,” he added.

Tomás Godino, who will be the controller of the merged company, emphasized said the new trading market will have “a nationwide geographic scope” and will generate “the possibility of generating strong product synergies between the agricultural, financial, and banking sectors.”