MSCI adds 6 Pakistani companies to Small Cap, 1 to Frontier Markets Indexes

In a positive development, Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Inc., in its results of the August 2024 index review, announced the addition of 7 Pakistani companies as constituents on its Frontier Market (FM) Index and FM Small Cap Indexes.

The changes will take place as of the close of August 30, 2024.

MSCI added one Pakistani company i.e. Sazgar Engineering Works on its Frontier Market Index.

In the MSCI FM Small Cap indexes, six Pakistani companies have been added, stated MSCI in the note.

These companies include Atlas Battery, Ghandhara Automobiles, Habib Sugar Mills, Lotte Chemical Pakistan, Octopus Digital and Soneri Bank.

Meanwhile, two Pakistani companies have been deleted from the MSCI FM Small Cap indexes.

These include HASCOL Patroleum and Sazgar Engineering Works.

“With these changes, Pakistan’s weight in the FM standard index is expected to be around 3.9%,” said brokerage house, Arif Habib Limited (AHL), in its report.

“Overall, we expect SAZEW weight of around 0.06% in the MSCI main index with the expected inflow of USD 2-2.5mn.”

MSCI adds 19 Pakistani companies to Small Cap, 3 to Frontier Markets Indexes

Earlier this month, Topline Securities in its report said that Pakistan’s weight was likely to increase in the upcoming Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Quarterly Index Review (QIR).

“Pakistan weight may increase by 35-45 basis points (bps),” said Topline Securities, a brokerage house, in a report.

“It may go to 4.7-4.8% from 4.2-4.3%,” Topline said, following the addition of a number of scrips and “increase in market capitalisation of existing constituents by ~9%.”

The brokerage said that due to the expected increase in weight by ~35-45bps and assuming Assets under management (AUM) size of $5-10 billion tracking MSCI FM index, “we expect gross inflows of $20-45 million”.

In September 2021, Pakistan was downgraded from its status as an emerging market, a little over four years after it was reclassified from the Frontier Markets (FM) Index by MSCI.

The MSCI had said then that while the Pakistani equity market meets the requirements for market accessibility under the classification framework for Emerging Markets, it no longer meets the standards for size and liquidity.