Celebrating $250 million market cap

Ladies, Gentlemen, and whomever might be present:

Seafarms Group has officially hit a market capitalisation of $250 million.

You've heard about the S&P ASX200, or the ASX 300 - now there are a lot of technical rules around this, but basically it's the most valuable Australian companies listed on the ASX - in the case of the ASX50 it's the 50 most valuable companies, in the case of the ASX200, it's the 200 most valuable companies, and in the case of the ASX300, it's the most valuable 300 and so on.

Just to put that into perspective, the lowest market capitialisation of the ASX200 is $487 million. I believe with a bit of time, and a bit of luck, and a bit of joy, one day SFG will be an ASX100 company. (minimum market cap for that is about $2 billion). But, the most appropriate index for us is likely to be the ASX300. The ASX 300's lowest market is $67 million. The market has decided that our little project is worth more than some brands you know, like Retail Food Group, iSelect, Amaysim and Mortgage Choice.

When we consider taking our (soon to be) place in the ASX 300, we will need to meet the eligibility criteria.

We won't make it into this quarter's rebalance, and probably not the next one - because, according to S&P "The market capitalization criterion for stock inclusion is based upon the daily average market capitalization of a security over the last six months." In other words if we stay around 15 cents (or higher) for six months or so, we will be included at the next re-balancing.

We will also need to meet "liquidity" requirements - that is we need to see SFG volumes remain high.

The ASX300 is re-balanced twice a year - in March and September. The next applicable ASX re-balance where we would be consider for inclusion would be March next year (assuming we keep our volumes up, and our SP high).

Why does this matter, you ask? Well, inclusion in the index usually unlocks two things: index funds holding a position in the company, and some financing. I wouldn't expect things go off big-time until we get included into the ASX200, but you should see a modest, but noticeable bump when if we get added to the ASX300.

I wouldn't consider inclusion in the index as a game-changer - the main game remains management building our prawn farm, but inclusion in the index will mean we're a serious concern.

Onward and upwards.