SOME of Singapore's best known, most successful listed companies have lost their place in the revamped Straits Times Index (STI).

These include transport giant ComfortDelGro and electronics firm Venture Corp.

But they find a new home in a new index, set to be closely watched too - the FTSE Mid Cap Index with a total market value of $119 billion.

In all, 17 STI constituent stocks will make the move to that index when the new family of indexes is officially launched next January.

Venture Corp, Singapore's biggest maker of customised electronics, will be the largest stock in the 50-member mid-cap index with a market capitalisation of $4.3 billion.

The smallest stock in the Mid Cap Index is health supplements group Cerebos Pacific, with a market capitalisation of $1.2 billion.

This index comprises the next 50 companies which did not qualify for the top 30 in the revamped STI, based on market capitalisation - the market value of its outstanding shares that meet free float and liquidity requirements.

Mr Kevin Scully, managing director of NRA Capital, a boutique corporate finance firm, said that he was quite surprised that many large and well-known stocks were being moved to the mid-cap index.

However, he noted that with 50 stocks, the mid-cap index 'will be a more balanced index, with a good mix of growth and dividend stocks and no one sector like the banking stocks dominating the index'.

'It is more reflective of the kind of investor interest, turnover volume. Companies like Venture can argue where they ought to be, but it's just the composition,' said CIMB-GK economist Song Seng Wun.

'For fund managers it is not going to be representative anyway. They'll be looking at big caps and how mid caps perform relative to that, whether they are moving in a similar direction, which will be much more interesting than the actual components themselves.'

The revision of the STI also saw another three stocks being dropped to another new index of small-cap firms.

The Small Cap Index consists of firms which did not qualify for the STI or the Mid Cap index.

Coincidentally all three are in the technology sector - multimedia player maker Creative Technology, information technology company Data-craft and electronics contract manufacturer Jurong Technologies.

These two indexes together with the main index comprising the 30 largest companies form the broader All-Share Index.

Stocks to be included in any of these indexes must pass free float and liquidity requirements.

A listed company requires a free float - shares freely traded on the bourse - of more than 15 per cent, which includes portfolio investments, and holdings by investment and nominee firms.

Two companies left out of these indexes were Jardine Matheson Holdings and Thai mobile phone operator Total Access Communication, as they failed the liquidity test.

According to the SGX, Jardines passed the required 0.05 per cent shares traded in only eight out of the last 12 months, which was less than the minimum 10 months.

Total Access has a free float band of 20 per cent, and only passed in nine out of 12 months, so it too did not qualify.

The performance of all the listed stocks on the indexes will be monitored by FTSE, which will conduct a review every six months.

The new STI will replace the current benchmark in January, to be followed by the first review due in September next year.

» How the indexes are created and updated

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