Four Russia-focused companies have been removed from the FTSE indices after brokers shunned dealing in them because of the invasion of Ukraine.
Evraz, Petropavlovsk and Polymetal, the metals and mining groups, plus Raven Property Group, a commercial property investment group, will be removed from next week.
FTSE Russell, the division of the London Stock Exchange Group that provides the benchmark indices, said that it was responding to feedback from its external advisory committees and a range of market participants.
Russell said it had been told that the ability to buy or sell shares in the four companies had been “severely restricted due to major international brokerage firms no longer supporting trading of these securities and therefore there is insufficient institutional liquidity and market depth”.
This would prevent “index trackers from replicating the ongoing inclusion of these names within the FTSE Russell indices”.
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Evraz and Polymetal were both due to be demoted from the FTSE 100 premier index to the FTSE 250 after a sell-off in their shares since the invasion, while Petropavlovsk was set to be evicted from the FTSE 250 in the quarterly reshuffle that takes effect from Monday.
Instead, they will be deleted from all FTSE Russell Indices, with NB Private Equity Partners and Standard Life Private Equity Trust promoted to the FTSE 250 to take Evraz and Polymetal’s places.
Evraz is a steel group that is part-owned by Roman Abramovich. Its shares were suspended on Thursday after the Russian oligarch was placed under UK sanctions, and they remain suspended.
Polymetal is a gold and silver miner that operates in Russia and Kazakhstan. Yesterday it issued a statement seeking to reassure investors that trading in its shares continued. The company said: “The recent exclusion of Polymetal shares from the series of FTSE equity indices does not impact the company’s listing on the London Stock Exchange.”
Petropavlovsk operates goldmines in the far east of Russia, while Raven Property Group specialises in renting out warehouses near Moscow.
