BYMA and S&P Dow Jones Indices successfully complete transition of Indices

Starting today, Monday, January 14, the production, development, licensing, distribution and administration of BYMA's current and future stock indexes will be carried out by S&P DJI. This also implies a change in the naming of the indexes, which will be co-branded

Bolsas y Mercados Argentinos (BYMA) consolidates its alliance with S&P Dow Jones Indexes (S&P DJI), the leading global provider of index-based data and research, whereby the latter will assume production, development, licensing, distribution and administration of current and future stock market indexes as of today.

The announcement follows a successful transition initiated in March 2018, and involves the renaming of the BYMA indices, which will incorporate the "S&P MERVAL" and "S&P/BYMA" co-brands and may be used as underlyings for liquid financial products.

The novelty involves the index family consisting of: S&P Merval, S&P Merval 25, S&P Merval Argentina, S&P/BYMA Burcap and S&P/BYMA Índice General, which will be under the supervision of a Committee formed by members of S&P DJI and BYMA, responsible for index governance, monitoring of general guidelines, policies and methodologies, as well as their maintenance.

As administrator of the Indicesunder IOSCO principles and in agreement with BYMA, S&P DJI will be responsible for the production, licensing and distribution of the S&P/BYMA indices (which includes constituents, weightings, corporate events, rebalancing information and historical data) as of the close of each trading day. S&P DJI will also be in charge of producing intraday index values. For its part, the exchange will continue to license and distribute real-time index information, as well as additional operational data, including Opening/Highs/Minimums/Volume and Last Tick.

The development is part of an Index Operating and Licensing Agreement and comprises the implementation of international methodological models, in addition to the integration of operational processes and business strategies.

The objective of the development is to enhance the visibility, governance and transparency of the existing indexes, while contributing to the expansion of the depth of the Argentine capital market.

In this regard, BYMA's Director, Luis Álvarez, said: "With this initiative, we aim to generate innovative and practical tools at the service of local and international investors, which allow raising the standards to the level of the best international practices, as part of our commitment with the development of the local market". He added: "Our relationship with S&P DJI was established at the beginning of last year and we aim to continue strengthening it with the creation of new indexes."

How was the transition?

Over the past few months, BYMA and S&P DJI worked together to implement the technological infrastructure for the communication and distribution of the indexes. It included a parallel stage in which S&P DJI performed the daily calculation of the same, adjusting its systems and platforms.

Throughout this period, the methodologies for calculating the indices within the S&P/BYMA family were updated through a public consultation process among members of the financial community, aligning the methodologies with international standards and providing access to global markets.

Today, January 14, 2019, S&P DJI acquires the role of administrator of the current and future indices.