SIX Group published its 2025 annual results today (Tuesday), reporting record adjusted operating performance across all four business units, but the headline numbers tell only part of the story.

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Quietly running alongside the revenue growth is one of the more consequential infrastructure bets in European post-trade markets: a plan to merge the group's Swiss and Spanish clearing houses into a single central counterparty and take on the London-anchored networks that have dominated European clearing for decades.

SIX Group Posts Record Operating Margins

Net operating income rose 4.7% to CHF 1,496.5 million, or 5.4% at constant exchange rates. EBITDA, excluding CHF 82.3 million in transformation costs, reached CHF 542.3 million, a 22.2% increase from 2024, with a margin of 36.2%, up more than five percentage points year-on-year.

Adjusted group net profit climbed 20.9% to CHF 247.2 million. A CHF 560.9 million non-cash write-down on the group's stake in Worldline pushed the reported net result to a loss of CHF 313.7 million, but SIX said that charge "no longer exposes the financial statements to substantial negative impacts" following the reclassification of the holding to a passive financial instrument.

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CEO Bjørn Sibbern said the group's record operational results reflect "broad and sustained growth," while signaling that executing the Scale Up 2027 transformation program, which targets an EBITDA margin above 40%, remains the top priority. Free cash flow improved to CHF 355.6 million. S&P affirmed its A credit rating with a revised outlook from negative to stable. The board proposes an unchanged dividend of CHF 5.30 per share at the May 6 Annual General Meeting.

The CCP Merger Takes Shape

The formal announcement came in December 2025, when SIX confirmed it would combine SIX x-clear, its Swiss central counterparty, with BME Clearing, the Madrid-based CCP it inherited from the €2.8 billion acquisition of Spanish exchange group BME. The merged entity, to be branded SIX Clearing, will be headquartered in Madrid, with operations in Zurich and Oslo, aiming for regulatory approval and go-live by 2027.

The two CCPs bring complementary assets to the table. SIX x-clear carries interoperability links across pan-European cash equity markets and relationships with major trading venues. BME Clearing holds a European Union banking license, granting direct access to ECB liquidity, which is a critical advantage for any CCP competing for eurozone business.

Together they already serve five asset classes across 28 trading venues and 18 markets. That breadth underpins SIX's argument that a merged entity would offer genuine scale, not just consolidation for its own sake.

This move fits a broader pattern SIX has been building for some time. In December 2024, the group expanded its interest rate swap clearing offering with multicurrency capabilities to address EU clearing needs, a step that signaled the group's clearing ambitions extended well beyond its home markets.

In March 2025, SIX introduced preferred clearing on Euronext's markets across Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon, Dublin, and Milan, competing directly for flow that typically routes through LCH, owned by London Stock Exchange Group.

Baymarkets: Buying the Engine Room

In November 2025, SIX added a technology layer to the CCP strategy by acquiring Baymarkets, a Norwegian company that builds clearing and exchange infrastructure for global financial markets. The purchase, for an undisclosed sum, gives SIX direct control over core clearing system architecture as it rebuilds the post-trade stack from the ground up.

The logic mirrors the Aquis Exchange acquisition completed in July 2025, where SIX bought not only a UK trading venue but also a matching engine it has since selected as the unified platform for its Swiss, Spanish, and UK markets. In each case, the technology was as important as the market.

Post-Trade Volumes Tell a Different Story

The Securities Services business unit, which houses the clearing and custody operations, reported a 3.2% decline in net operating income to CHF 439.0 million. The cause was almost entirely a 39.3% fall in net interest income to CHF 52.0 million, as central banks cut rates across the year.

Core transaction metrics moved in the opposite direction. Swiss clearing transactions rose 7.8%, settlement transactions climbed 22.0%, and average assets under custody grew 6.1% in Switzerland to CHF 4,236 billion. SIX also crossed CHF 1 trillion in international custody assets during the year.

The October 2027 EU, UK, and Swiss transition to T+1 settlement adds a further structural tailwind. Shorter cycles increase operational pressure on clearing infrastructure and historically accelerate consolidation among post-trade providers. SIX co-leads T+1 working groups in both Switzerland and Spain.

The 2027 deadline sits directly alongside the SIX Clearing target completion date, compressing the execution timeline but also concentrating the group's post-trade transformation into a single, high-stakes period.