Forum Archive Index - June 2001

["DR" <kat47@bigfoot.com>]

Another  negative for BRY from The Times today

 

INVESTORS in FTSE 250 leisure stocks are braced for short-term selling pressure in two leading hotel groups as tracker funds trim their holdings to reflect reduced index weightings.

Thistle Hotels and Millennium & Copthorne are tipped to be among the biggest mid-cap casualties of the FTSE’s imminent adoption of a free-float methodology, under which the weighting of a company within its indices will be adjusted to match the available stock.

UBS Warburg says that the changes — to come into effect at the market close on June 15 — should be especially pronounced among mid-caps and small caps. It calculates that a typical portfolio’s weighting in M&C, in which Kwek Leng Beng, chief executive, holds 52.4 per cent of the shares, should fall from 0.52 per cent to 0.27 per cent. Similarly, that of Thistle, 45.9 per cent owned by Brierley Investments, will drop from 0.29 per cent to 0.15 per cent. Index-related selling was evident yesterday as M&C fell 14½p to 384p. Thistle lost 1p at 121p, but is buoyed by its status as a takeover candidate, given Brierley’s long-held desire to check out. There are whispers that Starwood, the US group behind the Sheraton chain, has held informal talks with the New Zealand investor. D.