New Year’s New Names and Ticker Symbols
Mergers, corporate spinoffs and name changes effective Monday may affect the newspaper stock listing you’ve followed for years.
These changes in The Times’ stock market tables and those of other newspapers are among the notable moves:
* The takeover of Amoco Corp. by British Petroleum Co. was completed as 1998 ended. The new company is called BP Amoco, with a ticker symbol of BPA; the name appears in The Times’ New York Stock Exchange list as BP Amoco.
* Although known as Alcoa since 1929, Aluminum Co. of America, the world’s largest producer of aluminum, is making it official by changing its name to Alcoa Inc. The Pittsburgh-based company made the change to reflect the global scope of the company. The name used in newspaper stock tables still is Alcoa, but the listing changes places alphabetically in the Associated Press tables (which The Times uses), which are alphabetized by full corporate name.
* Washington Water Power Co., the Spokane-based energy producer, has changed its name to Avista Corp. Deregulation has moved the company out of its traditional Northwest service area, so company officials figured it was time to leave the geographic-based name behind. The ticker symbol and newspaper abbreviation on the NYSE have changed from WWP and WashWtr to AVA and Avista.
* Two Nashville-based real estate investment trusts, or REITs, that own correctional facilities--CCA Prison Realty Trust and Corrections Corp. of America--have merged to become Prison Realty Corp. The ticker symbol is PZN and the newspaper listing in the NYSE tables is PrisonR.
* Hilton Hotels has spun off its casino gaming businesses, which are now called Park Place Entertainment. Hilton’s shareholders got Park Place shares on a 1-for-1 basis. Park Place shares closed at $7.50 on Monday, while Hilton’s stock ended at $14.63, up $1.88. Both trade on the NYSE. Park Place’s ticker symbol is PPE. The newspaper listing is ParkPlc n.
* Rockwell International, the aerospace giant, spun off Conexant Systems at the rate of one-half share for each share of Rockwell held. Conexant will be the world’s largest company that provides semiconductor products exclusively for communications applications.
Rockwell shares went from $48.56 before the distribution to a Monday close of $41.13. The Nasdaq ticker for Conexant is CNXT. It appears as Conexnt n in Nasdaq listings.
* Cincinnati Bell, with a ticker symbol of CSN, distributed shares of its customer service and billing subsidiary, Convergys Corp., on a 1-for-1 basis. The move took Cincinnati Bell’s shares from $37.81 to a Monday close of $17.44. The NYSE ticker for Convergys is CVG and the newspaper name is Cnvrgys n.
