G4S, Coats and Sirius Minerals enjoy promotion in FTSE 350 reshuffle

FTSE Russell, which operates the UK equity benchmarks, confirmed that Allied Minds, AO World, BH Macro, Debenhams, Keller and SVG Capital all dropped out of the FTSE 250 onto the small cap list.

They will be replaced by industrial thread and consumer textile crafts business Coats Group, IT-focused professional services provider FDM Group, acquisitive manufacturing group Melrose Industries, investment trust Pershing Square Holdings, Yorkshire Polyhalite miner Sirius Minerals and Georgia's TBC Bank Group.

The changes, which are made based on market capitalisations from Wednesday's closing prices, were confirmed after the market closed and will be implemented at the close of business Friday, 16 June and put into practice from start of trading on Monday 19 June.

FTSE Russell said its reserve list for the FTSE 100 Index, in the event of a merger, acquisition, delisting or suspension before its next quarterly review, was: Berkeley Group, Melrose Industries, NMC Health, JD Sports Fashion, Just Eat and Halma.

Get your Coats

Coats is an interesting case, having been a founding member of the FT 30 index in 1935 and once the third largest company in the world.

In the many years since it has undergone significant corporate changes, having been bought up by the Guinness Peat Group before being listed back in London in early 2015 and last year delisting from both the Australian and New Zealand stock exchanges.

In January this year, Coats appointed ex-Shell, GE and Honeywell veteran Rajiv Sharma as chief executive and the following month returned to the dividend list, which all helped its market capitalisation topping £1bn last week.

Sirius Minerals has not quite the storied history of Coats, but has for years been a favorite among retail investors on the AIM market as it battled to gain approval to develop a polyhalite mine in the Yorkshire moors.

Analyst Nicholas Hyett at Hargreaves Lansdown noted that Sirius has been "furiously raising money" of late in order to embark on the next stage of development.

"With plans to build a huge mining facility directly under a National Park, many were sceptical that the project would ever get off the ground. However, regulatory approval is now in the bag and several large investors are on board.

"The move to the main market and FTSE 250 suggests there may now be appetite for the project among the large institutions who are unable to invest in AIM stocks,” he said.