Americana Restaurants, the largest quick-service restaurant operator in the Mena region, said on Thursday that it has been added to the MSCI UAE Index.
The index is considered an important benchmark for investment decision-making by investors in emerging markets including the Middle East. It is designed to measure the performance of large and mid-cap segments of the UAE equity market.
“Index inclusion typically supports increased liquidity for a company’s shares and can help to attract more regional and global institutional and index-tracking investors, including those with a focus on emerging market equities,” the company said in a statement to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, where its shares are traded.
As a constituent of the MSCI UAE Index, Americana is now also a constituent of all regional and composite MSCI equity indices containing the UAE. These indices include the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the MSCI Emerging Markets Investable Market Index and the MSCI All Country World Index.
Last month, Americana reported a 19 per cent drop in its first-quarter profit, despite a rise in revenue, as it expands its restaurants portfolio.
Net profit attributable to the shareholders of the parent company for the three months to the end of March declined to $58 million, from $72 million during the same period last year.
Americana, which raised $1.8 billion from its initial public offering in November last year, dual-listed on Saudi Arabia's main Tadawul market and the ADX, the Arab world's two largest stock markets.
Americana's IPO was the largest in Saudi Arabia last year and it was also the first company to be dually listed in the kingdom and the UAE.
The company sold more than 2.52 billion shares, or 30 per cent stake of its issued share capital, with the IPO drawing strong demand from institutional and retail investors that generated $105 billion worth of orders.
