Air France-KLM, PostNL and Imtech are losing their place in the Amsterdam stock exchange’s blue chip AEX index.

The new way of weighting stocks, based on the market capitalisation of the shares outstanding rather than trading volumes, will be the criteria for determining the make-up of the 25-strong AEX from March 24.

The airline, postal delivery firm and technical group will be replaced by dredging group Boskalis, financial services provider Delta Lloyd and fertilizer and building group OCI. The three stocks leaving the AEX will become part of the AMX midcap index and Heijmans, Unit4 and Pharming will shift down to the small cap ranking to make space for them.

The new method of calculating the make-up of the AEX is supposed to lead to greater stability.