LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Just Eat, DS Smith, Wood Group and Halma could gain a prestigious promotion to the FTSE 100 index in the quarterly reshuffle that will be decided next week.
Unless their shares enjoy a resurgence, the low-lying quartet of Babcock International, Merlin Entertainments and Mediclinic International and Convatec Group look the most likely to give way.

The changes, weighted using market capitalisation from closing prices on Tuesday 28 November, will be confirmed after market close on Wednesday and will be put into practice on 15 December.

Companies are automatically demoted from the FTSE 100 to the FTSE 250 if they fall to 111th or below on the list of largest companies by market cap.

With a market cap of just under £3.5bn, defence contractor Babcock is the largest company on the FTSE 250 and was 121st in the list just before midday on Thursday.

Merlin's £3.7bn placed the Legoland owner at 120th, three places above health and medical focused Mediclinic and Convatec, valued either side £3.8bn. Just inside the safety zone, for now, G4S's £4.1bn market value made it was the 108th largest company on the FTSE 350.

Packaging specialist DS Smith was valued at £5.8bn and Just Eat at £5.6bn, making them the 82nd and 86th largest companies on the London Stock Exchange as of midday on Thursday.

At just under £5bn market cap, newly enlarged oil services group John Wood and public safety specialist Halma were 95th and 96th largest.

** More to follow **

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