S&P 500 Changes on Tap in New Year
The S&P 500 and S&P 100 indices will undergo a makeover at the close of trading Wednesday, the last day of 2008, following the finalization of three mergers of financial companies.
Merrill Lynch
( MER) and
Wachovia
(WB)
, acquired earlier this year by
Bank of America
(BAC)
and
Wells Fargo
(WFC)
, respectively, will be deleted from the S&P 500 and S&P 100 indices at the close of trading, pending final approvals.
In October, Wells Fargo said will pay $15.1 billion for Wachovia in an all-stock transaction, beating out a previous bid by
Citigroup
(C)
that would have seen the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. take on the majority of risk in Wachovia's loan portfolio. That followed the September acquisition of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America in a deal worth $50 billion, which came on the heels of the
TheStreet Recommends
Lehman Brothers
bankruptcy.
Amazon.com
(AMZN)
will replace Merrill and
Costco Wholesale
(COST)
will take the place of Wachovia on the S&P 100. S&P MidCap 400 constituent
SCANA Corp.
(SCG)
will replace Merrill Lynch in the S&P 500, and
Owens-Illinois
(OI)
will replace Wachovia in the S&P 500.
Additionally, S&P MidCap 400 constituent
FLIR Systems
(FLIR)
will replace
National City
in the S&P 500.
PNC Financial
(PNC)
said in October it will buy National City for $5.2 billion in stock, in a deal that closed earlier this month.
As part of the deal, PNC said it had been accepted to take part in the U.S. Treasury's $250 billion capital initiative under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, by selling $7.7 billion of preferred stock and related warrants to the government.
The S&P 500 has already deleted several financial companies over the course of 2008, many of which were casualties of the credit crisis.
Washington Mutual
, Lehman,
Freddie Mac
( FRE),
Fannie Mae
( FNM),
Countrywide
,
Ambac Financial
( ABK),
Bear Stearns
, and
Commerce Bancorp
were all replaced on the S&P 500 over the last twelve months.
