Mumbai: Atherstone Capital Markets Ltd today announced the launch of a new set of indices that would track the performance of initial public offers (IPOs) and of major sectors in the four BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The BRIC Index will help global institutional investors take effective investment decision in emerging capital markets, Atherstone Capital Markets said.

Atherstone is the first South Asian investment bank to launch a BRIC Index.

The IPOs will be segregated on the basis of market capitalisation and there will be one index each for large and mid-cap IPOs, chief investment officer Gurunath Mudlapur said.

The large cap index will include companies with a market cap of over $100 million, while the mid-cap index will have companies with an average market cap of $25-100 million, he said, adding that the company would assess performance of the companies for 6 months.

Atherstone also launched three sectoral indices, namely, Atherstone BRIC Oil & Gas Index, Atherstone BRIC Power Index and Atherstone BRIC Bankex.

Atherstone Capital is also in the process of launching sectoral indices covering several other sectors of the BRIC economies. It has selected the most widely traded blue chip indices of these four countries; Brazil's IBrX100, Russia's RTS 50, India's Nifty and China's SSE50 as the Index Universe for Atherstone BRIC Index.

"Global institutional investors want to deploy capital in assets which give the maximum returns and these indices will help them in selecting the top performers within the four countries," he said, adding, "We think there is a demand for such kind of indices."

"We believe that in the next 30 years, the phenomenal growth in the BRIC economies would make the GDP of the BRIC-4 economies almost equivalent to the GDP of todays' G6 nations," said Mudlapur.

The Atherstone BRIC Index is calculated on full market capitalisation basis in dollar terms and the index would be reviewed on a yearly basis. It would comprise of 60 companies and has been calculated since July 1, 2004.

The indices will be distributed to customers free of charge for the first year, Mudlapur said. Depending on the demand, the company may also prepare customised indices for some customers, he said.