Definition
Free Float
The portion of a company's shares available for public trading, excluding holdings that are strategic, restricted or otherwise not in circulation.
- Status
- Definition in force
- Method version
- 1.0
- Reviewed
- 2026-08-22
In the Live Index framework
Weighting by total shares outstanding overstates the market presence of companies whose equity is largely held by founders, families, sponsors or cross-holding corporates. Free-float adjustment corrects for this by counting only shares that could actually change hands.
The live-music sector makes this correction unusually consequential. Several listed operators in the sector carry substantial strategic or founder-linked holdings, and dual-class structures are common enough that voting and economic interests diverge. An index that ignored float would assign weight to equity no public investor can buy.
The framework takes float from the company's own disclosure or the exchange record. Where a float figure cannot be sourced to one of those, the company is not weighted; an assumed float is a fabricated input like any other.