Vons Slips in Wall Street Debut

Presto chango. Vons Cos. made its debut as a publicly traded company Thursday and threw some stockbrokers and investors for a loop.

“I’ve received about 30 calls from stockbrokers and others who didn’t understand what happened to ASU,” said Mary M. McAboy, director of investor relations at the El Monte-based food retailer.

Until Thursday, ASU had been the symbol for Allied Supermarkets, a Detroit company with which Vons merged on Wednesday. Vons took over Allied’s spot on the New York Stock Exchange listings, and the symbol was changed to VON.

Although the merger has been in the works since the end of last year, a few on Wall Street apparently didn’t get the word until they tried calling up the defunct ASU symbol on their trading machines, McAboy said.

All in all, it was a pretty slow day for the new Vons, she noted. Only about 69,200 shares traded hands, with the stock price slipping 25 cents a share to close at $11.