ITV narrowly misses re-joining the FTSE 100

ITV has missed out on re-entering the FTSE 100 despite its shares performing strongly in recent weeks.

The broadcaster dropped out of the index for the first time a year ago and investors had hoped it was about to rejoin the UK’s top companies list.

However, a quarterly review of the FTSE 100 is expected to reveal that ITV will not be readmitted due to its market capitalisation at the close of trading last night.

The broadcaster’s share price closed at 51.25p, which values the company at £2 billion and puts it in 99th place on the London stock exchange.

ITV’s share price has increased by around 24% over the last month, compared with just a 5% increase for the FTSE index as a whole, but it needed to come in 90th place or above to qualify for re-entering.

As a result, there are now only four media companies in the FTSE 100 list – Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB, business to business media group Reed Elsevier, Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP and the publishing group Pearson – down from 10 companies that were listed in 2000.