MSCI announced that it will apply a freeze on certain index related changes for Turkish equity securities resulting from Index Reviews or corporate events, effective immediately and until further notice.
As part of the MSCI 2026 Market Classification Review, MSCI highlighted concerns raised by institutional investors about possible coordinated trading through fund holdings closely affiliated with certain smaller listed companies, which undermines the reliability of free float estimates and market integrity.
MSCI noted that it would look for tangible and credible progress, including granular and timely disclosure of beneficial ownership, robust surveillance and enforcement against coordinated trading behavior, and a transparent rules-based framework for identifying and treating securities with structurally distorted free float.
Institutional investors will need to see credible and sustained enforcement against coordinated trading, and disclosure standards that enable independent verification of the free float of Turkish securities, MSCI said.
MSCI said it will not implement increases to Foreign Inclusion Factors (FIF) or Number of Shares (NOS), additions to the MSCI Türkiye Investable Market Index (IMI) or upward migrations across size-segments indexes.
Should sufficient progress not be evident by June 2027, MSCI sai it will consider additional measures, including a consultation on a potential reclassification of the MSCI Türkiye Indexes from Emerging Market to Frontier or Standalone Market status.
