New York: MSCI Inc. will keep Nigeria in its benchmark frontier-market index after saying earlier this month that it might exclude the country because of the government’s capital controls.
MSCI won’t “implement changes” for Nigerian securities in its benchmarks including the MSCI Frontier Markets 100 Index in its semi-annual review next month, the New York-based index provider said in a statement on Friday. The country, however, will be placed under a “special treatment,” and some individual stocks that no longer meet MSCI’s criteria may be deleted from indexes.
MSCI said this month it might remove Nigeria from its benchmarks because inadequate liquidity in the foreign-exchange market is making it difficult for foreign investors to buy and sell securities. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Barclays Plc have already dropped Nigeria’s bonds from their local-currency emerging market indexes.
