S&P launches asia property 40 index

The index comprises 40 leading listed Asian companies, with no single market having more than 15 stocks in or representing more than 40 per cent of the index. It will be used by banks and asset-management companies to create retail-investment products.

The index is aimed at providing investors with diversified, investable exposure to the Asian property market. The index is a subset of the S&P-Citigroup Global Property Index.

S&P has observed a growing trend in Asia in the securitisation of real-estate assets through public-equity markets and public listing of property companies, S&P Index Services vice president Tim Eisenhauer said.

The index gives an opportunity to the region's investors to diversify their holdings and to foreign investors looking to gain long-term exposure to the Asian markets. S&P has launched the index because there is no tradable index that provides investors access to this asset class.

The index employs a modified market-capitalisation-weighting scheme and is rebalanced after the close of business on the third Friday of November. Stocks must have total market capitalisation of more than US$1 billion (Bt32.7 billion) and a three-month average daily value traded above the liquidity threshold of $3 million. Stocks in the selection universe are classified according to country of domicile. Each stock's primary-market listing must be on a regulated Asian stock exchange.

      At a glance

top firms on the index

n Mitsubishi Estate 

n Swire Pacific 

n Sun Hung Kai 

n Mitsui Fudosan

n Cheung Kong 

n CapitaLand 

n Country Garden

n Sumitomo Realty

n Guangzhou R&F Properties

n Hang Lung Properties