U.S. Steel’s New Name: USX

U.S. Steel took the word steel out of its corporate name on Tuesday and replaced it with the letter X--the company’s stock symbol on the New York Stock Exchange since 1924.

Renaming itself USX Corp., the company also announced a long-expected corporate restructuring that would make its steel division one of four operating units. Both moves were intended to reflect the diminishing importance to the overall company of its steel operations.

USX would become a holding company. In addition to the company’s steel division, which will be called USS, there will be three other operating units: Marathon Oil, Texas Oil & Gas and U.S. Diversified Group. The diversified unit will be created through the consolidation of U.S. Steel’s chemical business, its energy equipment manufacturing unit, its steel distribution centers and its construction, real estate, consulting and transportation operations.

David Roderick, U.S. Steel’s chairman, said the reorganization will give the firm greater flexibility to diversify into new businesses that are more profitable than steel. Industry analysts also said the restructuring is intended to turn the company’s troubled steel operations into a separate, stand-alone unit forced to pay its own way without being subsidized by other, more profitable divisions of U.S. Steel.