Facebook Inc. (FB) will join the Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) next week after the exchange operator shortened its waiting period for inclusion in the gauge, potentially making the stock more attractive to fund managers.
The operator of the social network with more than 1 billion users will replace Infosys Ltd. (INFO) before the start of trading on Dec. 12, Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. said, about seven months after the company’s $16 billion IPO. The waiting period for entry into the index was a negotiating point with Facebook as it considered listing on Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange, a person with knowledge of the matter said in April.
The addition to the index may attract buyers to Facebook amid a 55 percent rebound from its low three months ago as funds that track the Nasdaq-100 buy the shares. The stock had plunged as much as 53 percent after selling for $38 a share in May. The shares recovered after Facebook’s third-quarter sales rose 32 percent to $1.26 billion, topping analysts’ estimates, amid a push to boost revenue from advertising on mobile devices.
“Adding Facebook to the index should create some additional demand for shares,” said Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. in San Francisco. “But more important in our view is the progress Facebook is making since the summer on mobile and with the ad exchange.”
Gaining entry to gauges tracked by investors is attractive to public companies because it provides a guaranteed shareholder base. Exchange-traded funds and other products linked to the Nasdaq-100 managed about $49.4 billion at the end of last year, according to data compiled by Nasdaq.
Waiting Period
A person with direct knowledge of the matter said April 5 that Facebook decided to list on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Eight days later, the exchange operator shortened to three months the time a company must be listed on a “recognized market” before becoming eligible for the Nasdaq-100. It used to be at least two years, or one if a stock would be among the top 25 stocks in the index by market value.
The rule change was implemented on April 23, the day Facebook disclosed in a regulatory filing that it picked Nasdaq over the NYSE.
Facebook’s addition to the Nasdaq-100 was anticipated by investors and the benefits to the share price may be limited, said Josef Schuster, founder of Chicago-based Ipox Schuster LLC, in a phone interview. His firm has about $2 billion tied to indexes that track IPOs and has held Facebook shares since September.
Bloomberg
