Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) has added two Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) listed firms to their key index, increasing the stocks visibility to foreign investors.
- Standard Chartered Bank Kenya was added to the MSCI Frontier Markets Index while HF Group was added to the MSCI Frontier Markets Small Cap Index.
- The changes will take place after the markets close on 28th February, with no Kenyan company deleted from the MSCI Index in the review.
- The addition brings the total number of Kenyan companies in the Small Cap index to 8 with the NSE expected to benefit from increased exposure, offering more options in frontier markets.
The upgrade comes as the two companies remained bullish in the recent months to 2025, helped by strong fundamentals. Standard Chartered Bank Kenya closed yesterday at KSh 283.50, a 1.3% gain since the beginning of the year. HF Group has seen its share price surge 77.8% year-to-date, currently trading at KSh 8.02. The gains were primarily driven by the recent oversubscription of their rights issue.
MSCI provides indices and other decision making tools for the global investment community. Its most well known indices are the Frontier Markets Index, Emerging Markets Index, and All Country World Index. Kenya is one of the countries in its Frontier Markets Index, which includes 213 companies from 28 countries.
Currently, Safaricom carries the most weight, accounting for 40.9% of the MSCI Kenya Index with Equity, KCB Group, Co-op Bank and EABL taking up 28.2%, 19.1%, 6.7% and 5.1% percent respectively.
In Africa’s MSCI Frontier Markets Small Cap Index, Mauritius and Ivory Coast had one addition each with Morocco and Tunisia each getting one deletion. Morocco had three companies added to the MSCI Frontier Markets Index.
“There will be 13 additions to and four 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 Koncar Elektroindustrija (Croatia), CFG Bank (Morocco) and Standard Chartered Bank (Kenya),” Morgan Stanley Capital International said in a statement.
MSCI reviews its indexes periodically in February, May, August and November adding or removing any constituent companies and adjusting their weighting to reflect moves in market value of constituents.
