Hong Kong's benchmark provider Hang Seng announced it will remove troubled Chinese real estate developer Evergrande from one of its indexes — the China Enterprises index.
At the same time, it's set to add Chinese technology giants JD and Netease to its main benchmark Hang Seng index. All the changes will take effect Dec. 6.
The index provider did not provide a reason for the decision to remove Evergrande from the 50-stock China Enterprises index.
The embattled property developer has been snowed under by debt problems, and warned in September that it could default. While the real estate giant has managed to cough up the cash to make some interest payments so far, it's future still hangs in the balance and S&P Global Ratings said last week it could still default.
Evergrande's stock dipped 1.44% on Monday morning. Year to date, the stock has plunged more than 80%.
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In place of Evergrande, Hang Seng is adding biopharmaceuticals firm Innovent Biologics to the China Enterprises index.
Changes to the Hang Seng
As for changes on the Hang Seng index, China Resources Beer and ENN Energy Holdings will be added to the index in addition to the inclusion of JD and Netease. The latest update increases the number of stocks under the main index to 64, from the current 60 stocks.
Shares of JD jumped nearly 2% on Monday morning, while Netease was up nearly 3%.
S&P Global Ratings said in a Monday note that JD's business model is "well positioned" for China's strained conditions.
"The online retailer is outperforming its peers in China during a resurgence of COVID cases in the country and faltering consumer sentiment amid a housing downturn," S&P said.
"JD.com has also been investing heavily for years now in its logistics and supply chain infrastructure. This has given the entity better control over supply chains while its competitors were hit with outages," the report said.
S&P Global Ratings expects JD's revenue to jump more than 18% per year in the next 18 to 24 months.