Chile Finishes Its Index Overhaul and Hands the Keys to MSCI

Chile · MARKETS

The regional exchange group has handed Chile’s IPSA and IGPA to MSCI, with the switch due on 1 September 2026.

Chile’s stock market has finished the last leg of a three-country index overhaul, and the nuam index convergence now passes to MSCI. From 1 September the Santiago exchange’s two headline benchmarks are calculated abroad, not at home.

What nuam is and where it came from

nuam is the holding company that owns the stock exchanges of Santiago, Lima and Bogotá. Its own shares trade on the Santiago exchange under the ticker NUAM.

The merger became legally effective on 16 November 2023, once the last condition was cleared with Chile’s securities regulator. It was registered as Holding Bursátil Regional, a sociedad anónima, which is Chile’s form of public limited company.

Shareholders renamed the company nuam on 28 April 2026, retiring the older corporate label. The registered office sits on Isidora Goyenechea in Santiago, and Juan Pablo Córdoba is chief executive.

Ownership followed the exchange ratio agreed in 2022, with Chile and Colombia taking 40 percent each. Peru’s Grupo BVL took the remaining 20 percent of the capital.

The two Chilean indices that changed

The IPSA, or Índice de Precios Selectivo de Acciones, is Chile’s benchmark of large and liquid shares. The IGPA, the Índice General de Precios de Acciones, is the broader market gauge.

Both keep their familiar names and their historical series, with the MSCI brand placed in front. They become the MSCI IPSA and the MSCI IGPA from 1 September 2026.

The MSCI IPSA starts with 31 members and the MSCI IGPA with 50. Bloomberg users will find them under MXIPSAGC and MXIPSAPC, and under MXIGPAGC and MXIGPAPC.

One company joins the selective index on day one, and this newspaper covered that single entry separately. The nuam index convergence rewrites the rulebook rather than the market’s daily trading.

What now sits with MSCI

MSCI, short for Morgan Stanley Capital International, is an American index provider widely used across emerging markets. From September it calculates, publishes and administers both Chilean indices.

It applies its Global Investable Market Indexes methodology, the same framework already running in Lima and Bogotá. Selection and weighting rest on free float, the slice of stock genuinely available to buy.

The fixed ceiling of 30 IPSA members disappears, so size and liquidity thresholds now decide membership. Reviews move to four each year, replacing the twice-yearly IPSA cycle and the annual IGPA cycle.

MSCI’s regular equity review calendar sets the next announcement for 11 November 2026, taking effect on 1 December. Those dates come from the provider’s general schedule rather than a Chile-specific notice.

MSCI publishes the rules and applies them, but it does not pick Chilean companies by hand. Membership follows the published size and liquidity screens at each review.

How the handover works

nuam confirmed the change on 11 June 2026, ending nearly eight years of S&P Dow Jones Indices as operator. The American firm had run the IPSA since August 2018.

The exchange says the switch does not alter trading hours, order handling or settlement. Only the calculation and administration of the indices change hands.

Santiago has been briefing brokers, issuers and fund managers on the new rules since the first half of 2026. The stated aim is operational continuity for benchmarks written into contracts and mandates.

That continuity matters because the handover touches products that reference the IPSA by name. Index levels keep their history, so long-run charts do not break at the changeover.

What it means for funds and ETFs

An ETF, or exchange-traded fund, is a listed fund that tracks an index instead of picking stocks. Chile has one that follows the IPSA directly.

The ETF It Now S&P IPSA is run by Itaú Chile Administradora General de Fondos. Its mandate points at the selective index, so it will read the MSCI version from September.

Whether that fund changes its own name has not been announced, and the manager has said nothing publicly. Pension portfolios and index mandates quoting the IPSA face the same automatic switch.

Rebalancing days already bunch up turnover in Santiago, which is the practical cost of the nuam index convergence. On 29 May 2026 an MSCI global rebalance lifted trading above 690 billion pesos (US$751 million).

That peso figure uses the Banco Central de Chile dólar observado of 918.42 pesos per dollar for 27 August 2026. The IPSA fell one percent in that May session, closing at 10,788.19 points.

Lima and Bogotá went first

Colombia moved first, switching the COLCAP to the MSCI COLCAP on 28 May 2021. That index is the main gauge of the Bogotá market.

Peru followed on 1 September 2025, when the Lima exchange retired its S&P branded indices. The replacements are the MSCI nuam Peru General and the MSCI nuam Peru Select.

The Peru General index carries 33 companies and caps any single stock at 20 percent. A capped variant limits each member to 15 percent at every rebalancing.

The capped Peru Select index holds 14 names, among them Credicorp, Southern Copper and Buenaventura. Intercorp, InRetail and Cerro Verde also sit in that group.

Lima’s indices rebalance in November, February, May and August, the quarterly rhythm Chile now adopts. With Santiago’s move the nuam index convergence covers all three national benchmarks.

The regional index above the national ones

nuam and MSCI also built a single regional benchmark covering the three markets together. It is published as the MSCI nuam Index.

At launch in mid-2025 it held 56 companies with a combined market value near US$319 billion. It is rebalanced quarterly under the same international methodology.

The index gives foreign investors one line for Chile, Colombia and Peru instead of three separate ones. Sector mixes differ sharply between the three, which is the argument for combining them.

Index alignment is one strand of a wider plan that also covers a shared trading platform and clearing. The nuam index convergence is the strand that is now finished.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• www.nuam.com
• www.msci.com
• www.df.cl
• www.df.cl
• www.latercera.com
• www.emol.com
• www.cnnchile.com
• www.larepublica.co
• www.larepublica.co
• www.valoraanalitik.com
• gestion.pe
• elcomercio.pe
• servicioscms.bolsadesantiago.com
• app2.msci.com
• www.df.cl
• mindicador.cl
• www.riotimesonline.com

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