The chief executive of ASX Limited, Helen Lofthouse, will step down in May after an 11-year career at the stock exchange operator.

ASX did not provide a specific reason for her departure.

It also made the announcement late yesterday (at 6:18pm), when the market had already closed — and just before the ASX is due to unveil its financial results on Thursday.

Ms Lofthouse, who was appointed as CEO in 2022, is resigning after years of bad publicity for the company.

Be prepared — I’m about to write a long list of problems affecting the ASX.

Fines, lawsuits and misleading statements

In March 2024, ASIC fined the ASX $1.1 million for breaching market integrity rules. The corporate regulator said the ASX failed to publish pre-trade information for more than 8,000 transactions.

Then, in August 2024, ASIC sued the ASX for allegedly making misleading statements related to its CHESS replacement project, including that it was “on track for go-live” and “progressing well”.

Since 2015, the ASX has been trying to replace its three-decade-old platform (used to clear and settle trades) with little success.

CHESS stands for Clearing House Electronic Subregister System, in case you’re wondering.

Shortly afterwards, in December 2024, the ASX’s CHESS system broke down in the week before Christmas.

The outage delayed the settlement of trades and raised concerns about the ASX’s ability to maintain critical market infrastructure.

Wrong TPG and another outage 

In June 2025, ASIC commenced a broad investigation into the ASX, escalating tensions that had been simmering for years amid a botched software upgrade and a series of trade-processing glitches.

ASIC chairman Joe Longo said the Reserve Bank (the other joint regulator of the stock exchange) also held ongoing concerns about the ability of ASX to maintain stable, secure and resilient critical market infrastructure.

This eventually led to ASIC imposing an additional capital charge of $150 million on ASX’s accounts.

Then, in August 2025, ASX caused TPG Telecom’s share price to plunge as a result of a clerical error.

The exchange operator published news of a takeover announcement on its website, involving TPG Capital, but it wrongly tagged the telco in that announcement.

More than $400 million was wiped off TPG Telecom’s market value as a result of the sell-off before the ASX suspended the stock from trading and said it was cancelling those trades.

In December 2025, the ASX revealed its platform suffered an outage, which prevented many companies from publishing price-sensitive announcements. This forced the ASX to place as many as 80 stocks under trading halts.

Sharp rise in ASX’s costs

And finally, in January 2026, the exchange operator flagged a sharp increase in annual costs as it stepped up spending on technology and risk controls after a regulatory inquiry.

It now expects its fiscal 2026 expenses to rise between 20% and 23%, compared with the 14% to 19% growth seen earlier.

Its total expenses, including ASIC inquiry-related costs, came in at $264.3 million for the first half of fiscal 2026 (up 20% from the prior year).

It’s perhaps no surprise that ASX’s share price has dropped by almost 10% in the past year.

– with Reuters