FX Repatriation: MSCI Ends Special Treatment for Egypt, Kenya Indexes
MSCI has ended special treatment for Egypt and Kenya as foreign investors in these African countries reported an improvement in capital repatriation as a results of improvement FX liquidity.
The leading provider of critical decision support tools and services for the global investment community announced special treat of Egypt Indexes on May 08, 2023 after similar notice was communicated on MSCI Kenya Indexes on August 08, 2022.
In its latest update, MSCI stated that based on the feedback from market participants, liquidity in the Egyptian and Kenyan foreign exchange markets and the ability of foreign investors to repatriate capital from the Egyptian and Kenyan equity markets have improved.
“Starting from the May 2024 Index Review, MSCI will no longer apply the special treatment for the MSCI Egypt Indexes announced on May 08, 2023 and for the MSCI Kenya Indexes announced on August 08, 2022”.
Elsewhere, MSCI said it will continue to not implement changes as part of this index review for any securities classified in Bangladesh for the MSCI Bangladesh Indexes or impacted composite indexes in light of currently observed market accessibility issues.
As announced in November 2023 Jordan met the Foreign Listing Materiality Requirement. Hence, foreign listings will become eligible for the MSCI Jordan Indexes as part of this index Review.
Jordan is currently classified as Frontier Market. Also, foreign listings will become eligible for the MSCI Brazil and the MSCI Sweden Indexes starting from the August 2024 and November 2024 Index Reviews, respectively.
While the index changes were announced on May 14th, they will be implemented for the market cap indexes by June 3rd, 2024. MSCI’s standard practice is to announce the results of the review and provide sufficient lead time before implementation, allowing the market and market participants to adjust to the information.
On May 14th, MSCI said 187 securities will be added and 326 securities will be removed from the MSCI ACWI Investable Market Index (IMI), MSCI’s flagship global equity index.
“There will be nine additions to and five deletions from the MSCI Frontier Markets Index. The three largest additions to the MSCI Frontier Markets Index measured by full company market capitalization will be Digi Communications (Romania), Koncar Distributivni I (Croatia) and Air Astana GDR (Kazakhstan).
“There will be 27 additions to and six deletions from the MSCI Frontier Markets Small Cap Index”. MSCI will resume the implementation of index review changes for Kenyan and Egyptian securities in the MSCI Equity Indexes. #FX Repatriation: MSCI Ends Special Treatment for Egypt, Kenya Indexes
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