Turkish regulators announced on 22 September 2026 that more than a quarter of companies listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange's main index will be removed, citing a liquidity crisis and declining trading volumes. The restructuring is designed to concentrate the index on more liquid securities and improve market efficiency.
The index restructuring is directly connected to a broader Turkish fund-industry crisis in which authorities froze assets of investment fund executives following redemption failures. Bloomberg Markets reported on 21 September 2026 that arrests were made and that the situation had contributed to a sharp selloff in equities, with Turkish authorities subsequently considering a pooled asset structure drawn from frozen funds to repay affected investors.
The XU100, the benchmark equity index for Borsa Istanbul, is directly affected as the restructuring alters its composition by removing more than 25% of its constituent companies. Borsa Istanbul has also separately ejected a factoring company central to the fund scandal from its leading indexes.
Turkish authorities were reported to be actively investigating fund executives amid the redemption crisis as of 21–22 September 2026. Bloomberg Markets also reported that Turkish investors withdrawing from money market funds during the crisis have been redirecting savings primarily into lira deposits, indicating capital reallocation within domestic currency assets rather than outright capital flight.
Sources: news.google.com, Bloomberg Markets