"We are delighted to be included in the Russell family of indexes," says Dennis Gershenson, president and chief executive officer, in a statement. "This is major accomplishment for Ramco-Gershenson and caps an eventful first six months of 2002."

The company had been on a buying spree, after selling properties to pay down debt early in the year.

Membership in Russell's 21 US equity indexes is determined by market capitalization rankings and style attributes rather than by subjective opinion or committee decisions.

Ramco-Gershenson officials say Russell indexes are widely used by managers for index funds and as benchmarks for both passive and active investment strategies. About $250 billion is invested in index funds based on Russell's indexes and an additional $850 billion is benchmarked to them. Investment managers who oversee these funds purchase shares of member stocks according to that company's weighting in the particular index.

Annual reconstitution of the Russell indexes captures the 3,000 largest US stocks as of the end of May, ranking them by total market capitalization to create the Russell 3000. The largest 1,000 companies in the ranking comprise the Russell 1000 Index while the remaining 2,000 companies become the widely used Russell 2000 Index.

Ramco-Gershenson has a portfolio of 59 shopping centers totaling approximately 11.4 million sf of gross leasable area, consisting of 58 community centers, of which nine are power centers and three are single tenant properties, as well as one enclosed regional mall. Other centers are located in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Florida.