Nike and Simon Property Group are dropped from the S&P 100 Index after an 18-year run

Nike and Simon Property Group will both be dropped from the S&P 100 Index on 21 September, in the quarterly rebalancing that S&P Indices carries out every three months.

Neither company disappears from the wider market: both remain constituents of the broader S&P 500 Index, which tracks 500 large American companies rather than the 100 mega caps the narrower index reserves for the biggest and most established names among them.

The trigger for Nike is blunt. Its stock has fallen 78% from its peak, and that decline has left its market capitalisation no longer representative of the range the S&P 100 is built to hold. Nike joined the index in December 2008 and is leaving after eighteen years, one of the longer tenures among its constituents.

Nike's slide traces back to the direct-to-consumer push that former chief executive John Donahoe drove from June 2020, when the company pulled back from wholesale accounts it had relied on for decades. Elliott Hill, who had already spent years in leadership roles at Nike before retiring in 2020, rejoined as chief executive in October 2024 to reverse course.

What Hill's turnaround has produced so far

Hill's plan has shown clearer results in Nike Running than elsewhere, but investors have grown impatient waiting for it to broaden. The company has offered no runway guidance on how long a fuller recovery will take, and some shareholders want visible growth across more of the business before they extend further patience.

On a 30 June conference call, Hill said the sportswear division would introduce more than a dozen new footwear styles in the second half of fiscal year 2027, which begins next January. Last month Nike launched the Hybrid Fly and Hybrid RN, a training footwear system for men and women aimed at the fast-growing Hyrox fitness format.

Those shoes are built to move an athlete from running into lifting and other dynamic movement without giving up speed, stability or traction, Nike said. Macroeconomic pressure has complicated Hill's task throughout, and the company is due to post first-quarter results on 1 October, its first scheduled disclosure since the index change takes effect.

The turnaround has also reached deeper into Nike's portfolio. We reported that Nike installed Kristin Bauer, formerly Foot Locker's supply chain chief, as chief operating officer of Converse, a move that signalled the ailing sneaker brand's fix would rest on operational discipline rather than design changes alone.

Nike has also been rebuilding a commercial function it once dismantled. We covered its hiring of Jane Ewing, a Walmart veteran, as chief commercial officer overseeing both direct-to-consumer and wholesale, a reversal of an earlier decision to eliminate the post and a sign of how seriously the wholesale relationship now matters again.

Why Simon Property is also leaving

Simon Property Group, the largest mall operator in the United States, exits the S&P 100 alongside Nike, having navigated a year of leadership change and retail disruption of its own. Eli Simon became chief executive after the death of his father, David Simon, in March, while continuing his role as chief operating officer.

Some of Simon's mall space went dark this year after the Saks Global bankruptcy closed stores across its portfolio, including Saks Off 5th locations. Saks Global has since emerged from bankruptcy under a new name, Exemplar Luxury Group, closing the chapter that darkened those spaces in the first place.

On last month's second-quarter earnings call, Eli Simon said the company had recovered one million square feet of space through Saks Off 5th closures. He said those reclaimed locations should draw more productive retail tenants willing to pay higher rents than the outgoing anchor had.

We reported on that shift in more detail: Simon Property is positioned to collect far more rent once new tenants move into the space Saks Global vacated, and the company's second-quarter numbers already showed the benefit of that reclaimed square footage flowing through its leasing figures.

Simon Property is now in the process of repurposing the darkened spaces, whether by bringing in new tenants, converting them to mixed use, or shifting them toward outdoor formats. That repositioning effort is separate from the index change but is inside the same earnings period that shaped this year's results.

A third company shifts index tiers the same day

Capri Holdings, the owner of Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, is making its own move on 21 September, exiting the S&P MidCap 400 Index to join the S&P SmallCap 600 Index. Unlike Nike and Simon Property, Capri is being demoted a tier rather than dropped out of a top-tier index entirely.

All three changes fall on the same date and stem from the same quarterly rebalancing, which S&P Indices runs four times a year to keep constituents matched to their market capitalisation ranges. For Nike, an 18-year run in the top tier ends because its share price fell further than the index's threshold allows.

Simon Property's next reporting window will show whether the one million square feet freed by Saks Off 5th's exit has begun converting into the higher rents Eli Simon has forecast.

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