Sapient's S&P Surprise

You would think that being named to the Standard & Poor's 500 Index list would come with a little fanfare — or least some advance notice. That's not what happened to Sapient Corp., which in May became the first e-consultancy to make the blue chip roster.
"When you get named to the S&P 500, nobody knows, nobody tells you, and you don't apply," says Jerry Greenberg, Sapient's co-chairman and co-CEO, from his Cambridge, MA, office on the day of the S&P debut. "I had to go look up all the rules last night. They told us at 4:30 p.m. last night, 'You're in the S&P 500,' and we were like, 'That must be a mistake. That's unbelievable.'"
Not that Greenberg's complaining. The news was a boon to Sapient's share price, which rose 29 percent that day to a close of 102-3/16. Becoming a benchmark for Wall Street is not only great public relations, but it also has untold benefits for employee morale, says Greenberg. "It's one simple thing, but it's kind of nice when nobody else has it."