Announcement – Methodology Change | Several Solactive Indices | Effective Date 17th October 2024

Today, on 04/10/2024, Solactive announces the following changes to the methodology of the following indices (the ‘Affected Indices’):

Rationale for Methodology Change

Solactive believes in order to align with standard market practices and increase the replicability of the index, the following changes are proposed. The changes will allow for easier replication via share fixing rebalancing and reducing the amount of rebalancings to quarterly and by selecting from a pool of 70 names by the selection party. Removing the decrement and Energy exclusion while reducing the ADV threshold and increasing maximum total market capitalization threshold will also better reflect the composition of the global developed market small and mid cap universe and standard market practices.

Changes to the Index Guideline

The following Methodology change/(s) is/are proposed in the following point/(s) of the Index Guideline

2.1 Index Universe Requirements

From:

–               Minimum TOTAL MARKET CAPITALIZATION of USD 500 million as of the Selection Day

–               Maximum TOTAL MARKET CAPITALIZATION of USD 10 billion as of the Selection Day

–               Minimum Average Daily Value Traded (ADV) over the 30 business days prior to and including the SELECTION DAY of at least USD 10 million

–               Not classified under any of the following sectors: Real Estate, Energy, Pharmaceuticals

To:

–               Minimum TOTAL MARKET CAPITALIZATION of USD 500 million as of the Selection Day

–               Maximum TOTAL MARKET CAPITALIZATION of USD 15 billion as of the Selection Day

–               Minimum Average Daily Value Traded (ADV) over the 30 business days prior to and including the SELECTION DAY of at least USD 5 million

–               Not classified under any of the following sectors: Real Estate, Pharmaceutical

–               The INDEX UNIVERSE  is further reduced to 70 companies as determined by the SELECTION PARTY using a 12 month average score of the Factors described  in Section 2.2. In addition the SELECTION PARTY will ensure adequate representation across Sectors and Regions.

–               The INDEX UNIVERSE is set annually on the 30th of September.

2.2 Selection of the Index Components

From:

–               All stocks in the INDEX UNIVERSE are ranked by their final factor score, and the security with the highest score within each region-sector basket is selected

To:

–               All stocks in the INDEX UNIVERSE are ranked by their final factor score, the top 50 stocks are selected.

3.1 Ordinary Rebalance

From:

This is carried out by implementing the weights as determined on the SELECTION DAY.

To:

This is carried out by implementing the shares as determined on the SELECTION DAY.

4.1 Index Formula

Removed:

For the construction of the indices a decrement of 1.5% per annum is deducted on each INDEX CALCULATION DAY from the PR, NTR, and GTR Index versions. The decrement will be applied in compliance with the Solactive Equity Index Methodology, which is incorporated by reference and available on the SOLACTIVE website: https://www.solactive.com/documents/equity-index-methodology/.

6. Definitions

From:

“REBALANCE DAY” is the last BUSINESS DAY of each month.

To:

“REBALANCE DAY” is the last BUSINESS DAY of the months of January, April, July and October.

Defined terms used in this announcement, but not defined herein, have the meaning assigned to them in the respective index guideline of the Affected Indices. The amended version of the index guideline will be available on the effective date.