SINGAPORE (June 4): The Straits Times Index has removed the publisher of the newspaper whose name has been lent to the local benchmark market index, from the index itself.
Singapore Press Holdings, publisher of The Straits Times, Singapore’s largest newspaper, has been removed from the STI, following a regular quarterly review.
Just last week, SPH, along with SATS, ComfortDelGro and SembCorp Industries were removed from the separate MSCI Singapore index.
Mapletree Industrial Trust will take its place among the 30-constituent stocks of the STI on June 22, which is calculated jointly by FTSE Russell, the Singapore Exchange, and, SPH.
With MINT’s inclusion, the STI reserve list now includes Keppel DC REIT, Suntec REIT, NetLink NBN Trust, Frasers Logistics & Industrial Trust and Keppel REIT.
These are the five highest ranking non-constituents of the STI by market capitalisation, ranked in order of size.
In recent years, REITs and trusts have surged in popularity. The composition of the STI is but a reflection of this. There were five REITS in the STI. With MINT, there’s now six, including two other Mapletree-family REITs: Mapletree Commercial Trust and Mapletree Logistics Trust.
Year to date, MINT, riding on investors’ appetite for its newly-acquired data centre portfolio, has held steady at the roughly the same price level despite the recent market turmoil. It closed at $2.65 on June 4, valuing it at $5.83 billion.
In contrast, SPH has lost 37.7% year to date to close at $1.37 on June 4. This gives the newspaper publisher a market value of $2.19 billion.
Ironically, SPH REIT, spun off SPH’s property business, has a higher market value of $2.47 billion than SPH itself. It is down 16.7% year to date.
SPH owns a stake of 69.776% of this REIT, which, at June 4’s closing price, is valued at $1.72 billion.
