Indexing company FTSE Russell is considering whether a change to its admission rules is necessary to recognise companies issuing non-voting shares.
The Wall Street Journal reports that a consultation is underway at the indexing company, which could conclude with companies having to reform their share structures if they want to retain their place in FTSE Russell’s indices covering the US.
A statement from FTSE Russell in a press release said the company “intends to conduct a full market consultation to analyse and assess the impact of admitting companies that attach no voting rights to their offered share classes such as SNAP Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) into the Russell indexes.”
Institutional investors await the outcome of the consultation, which is expected to conclude in July. An earlier statement from FTSE Russell said it was “aware of concerns raised by some stakeholders regarding the prospective index inclusion of securities with no voting rights such as the recent IPO by SNAP Inc.”
The consultation will focus on the threshold of non-voting shares that a company can issue and still retain index membership.
The Wall Street Journal quotes James Andrus, an investment manager at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, saying: “The future of the markets are at stake.”