SPD

A company that has sacked its financial PR, seen its chairman resign and drawn fierce criticism for its poor investor relations effort in the four months since its initial public offering hardly seems like a candidate for promotion to one of the UK stock market’s key benchmark indices. Yet this is what has happened, with the elevation of Sports Direct International (SPD) to the FTSE 250 by the FTSE Group after this week’s latest index reshuffle.

Sports Direct’s shares have plunged from February’s 300p flotation price to just 199p, as its maverick deputy chairman and majority shareholder Mike Ashley has allowed concerns over the company’s corporate governance to develop unchecked. Yet the retailer’s £1.4 billion market cap proved more than enough to vault it into the FTSE250, alongside fellow new entrants Xchanging (XCH), Domestic and General (DGG) and ITE Group (ITE).

This quartet replaces Woolworths (WLW), Helical Bar (HLCL), Dunelm (DNLM) and Computacenter (CCC), which drop into the Small Cap Index.

The only change in the FTSE 100 sees house builder Barratt Developments (BDEV) move up from the FTSE 250 and switch places with Bradford and Bingley (BB.).

All changes to the indices will become effective next week, on Monday 18 June.