It’s less than a month until the quarterly reshuffle of the FTSE indices. And based on current market prices, a couple of Russian miners — one of them controlled by Chelsea boss Roman Abramovich — and an Irish building materials group could all be joining the FTSE 100.
(H/T – City broker)
So that’s three foreigners in, two foreigners out.
Abramovich’s Evraz and Polymetal are all big enough to qualify for the blue chip index, though they may not pass FTSE’s liquidity test.
CRH’s is a little different. It’s entry will be subject to a reclassification to a secondary listing on the Irish stock exchange. This needs to be completed by December 6 in order to qualify.
For the two Russian companies it’s difficult (if not impossible) to predict the number of shares FTSE index trackers will be forced to buy because we don’t what investability weighting they will be given. Evraz could be as low as 30 per cent and Polymetal as high as 75 per cent.
Lower down the market, investors and track funds will be welcoming Nat Rothshchild’s corporate governance nightmare, Bumi, to the FTSE 250 and waving goodbye to familiar names such Pace, Premier Foods and Mothercare.
Again, we don’t know what weighting Bumi will get — but given strained relations between Nat and Bakries, the lower the better.
FTSE will announce the decisions of the reshuffle on December 7 based on the closing prices on the 6th.
Changes will be in effect as of the end of business on the 16th.
Related link:
FTSE asks the free float question – FT Alphaville