The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) Board of Directors approves (January 21st 2010) to launch a new equity index covering the biomed sectors.
Some 100 technology companies currently trade on the TASE, of which 38 are in the various biomed industries. Most of these companies are early-stage enterprises engaged in R&D in life sciences, biotechnology, drug discovery, medical equipment, etc. The total market value of all biomed shares comes to approximately US$2.2 billion while the value of the free float comes to approximately US$1billion
Biomed is one the growth sectors, which has generated considerable investor interest in the past few years. Demand for ETNs and other products tracking this sector has grown with this interest.
The new index joins existing TASE sector indices, including: the TelTech and TelTech-15 indices of technology shares; Estate-15 index of major real estate and construction shares; Finance-15 index of large financial service firms and TA-Banks index of commercial banks. The construction of the new biomed index will be based on the methodology governing these other indices. The weight of a single company in the index will be capped at 9.5% and the index will include all companies meeting the following threshold conditions: a minimum market cap of NIS 50 million (? US $13.2 million) and free float of at least 20% with a market cap no lower than NIS 25 million (? US $6.6 million).
The index will be launched once technical arrangements are completed. The launch date will be published 30 days in advance.