From AFR:
The Medibank index guessing game has begun.
Now that the stock has finally hit the ASX boards, brokers and fund managers are trying to work out when it will appear in local and global share indexes and what that means for Medibank’s share price.
The $5.9 billion private health insurer is an obvious contender for Australia’s top-100, the S&P/ASX100, but there is some debate about whether it will be included in the next rebalance to be announced on December 5.
There is some chatter among trading desks and brokers on Wednesday morning that S&P may accelerate Medibank’s inclusion, which may make some domestic fund managers nervous.
As for the others, Medibank will be fast-tracked into the MSCI global equity indexes on December 8. UBS’s trading desk reckons that should be enough for passive index tracking funds to require 137.7 million shares.
The broker also said that FTSE would fast-track Medibank inclusion into its All World index if Medibank’s market capitalisation is more than $US4.9 billion on December 5. It is currently worth $US5.1 billion.