Re-rating on the New Zealand stock exchange's lucrative top 20 companies list has pushed out the ANZ bank, Freightways and Guinness Peat Group.
Moving into the top 20, is Infratil, which made about $400 million floating petrol retailer Z Energy recently, Mighty River Power, despite its share price languishing 10% down on its recent float price at $2.21, and Xero, the bourse's top performer during the past year, despite it never having posted a profit.
Institutional investors generally hold a high proportion of top 20 stocks, there are top 20 index-only funds, and the top 20 is the basket of companies used in the complex derivatives (futures) market.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Greg Easton said the three companies elevated to the top 20 all had free-float valuations around $1.4 billion, while displaced companies all had free-floats ranging between $636 million and $663 million.
Inclusion in or exclusion from the top 20, in the NZX's quarterly review, relies on the ''free-float'' value of listed companies. Free-float analysis strips out major shareholders with 10% or more of a company who hold their stakes long-term, and the remaining free-float is those shares otherwise available for trading.
Mr Easton noted the ANZ bank, with a market capitalisation (of all its shares) was $A96 billion ($NZ109.9 billion) but its free-float was only $663 million.
''Those other companies [Freightways and GPG] are victims of their own size, with Xero and MRP simply overtaking them,''he said.
