What the migration of primary listings says about Canada’s capital markets

Monitors display Barrick Mining Corp. signage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, U.S. Photo by Michael Nagle/Bloomberg files

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Barrick Mining Corp. recently announced an initial public offering of its North American gold assets, with a primary listing on the New York Stock Exchange and a secondary listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange. It follows Teck Resources Ltd., which last year agreed to merge with Anglo American PLC, with the combined company slated for a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange.

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While these may seem like isolated decisions, we should take notice. These are storied Canadian companies with deep national roots that are choosing to shun our public markets for their primary listings. Viewed alongside the broader decline in public companies and initial public offerings on Canada’s stock exchanges, a troubling pattern begins to emerge.

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The fact that these are mining and resource companies is alarming. The TSX and TSX Venture Exchange have long been a magnet for precisely these companies, owing to decades of accumulated financial and legal expertise, as well as institutional and investor familiarity in the sector. There is a history here. Regional exchanges in Vancouver and Calgary dating back to the early 20th century played an influential role in financing and scaling mining and resource ventures. That tradition continued when the TSX acquired the regional exchanges to form the TSX Venture Exchange in 2001.

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While we have also seen technology companies bypass Canadian stock exchanges to list in the U.S., that pill is perhaps easier to swallow. Canada has never had deep public-market strength in the technology sector, and U.S. exchanges offer more liquidity, substantially more capital and a larger pool of investors with technology expertise. When a Canadian technology company lists in New York — as Xanadu Quantum Technologies Ltd. recently did by choosing the NASDAQ for its primary listing and the TSX for its secondary — it can be chalked up to familiar forces: companies follow the money.

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Canada has long played this role in the mining sector, particularly given its developed expertise. According to the TMX Group’s 2026 Guide to Listing, about 40 per cent of the world’s public mining companies are listed on the TSX and TSXV.

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Teck’s case has especially drawn the ire of institutional investors. Despite remaining operationally rooted in Canada, the merger with Anglo American would redomicile the combined company to the U.K., placing its S&P/TSX Composite and S&P/TSX 60 eligibility at risk. This underscores another trend: the increased importance of index membership.

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There is a growing share of Canadian savings that is now flowing through index-based vehicles, such as exchange-traded funds, and this is shaping how capital is allocated. These vehicles do not trade on fundamentals, per se — they simply rebalance mechanically. To be eligible for the S&P/TSX Composite, a company must be domiciled in Canada. In an about-face, the S&P Dow Jones Indices is now reportedly considering rule changes to allow certain foreign-listed firms to retain eligibility, triggered in part by Teck’s merger with Anglo American.