ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 12, 1996 TAG: 9609130031
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press
The 3.3 million people who own AT&T Corp. are about to take part in a rare Wall Street event.
Beginning Friday a second form of AT&T stock, concocted to reflect the company's value after it breaks off its equipment business, will start trading side-by-side with the traditional version of the nation's most widely held stock.
The shares representing the new AT&T will trade for the rest of the month until Lucent Technologies is completely cut loose. A second form of Lucent will also trade for the same reason.
While the value of the two Lucent stocks is likely to remain the same, the new AT&T issue will be about 20 to 25 percent cheaper. The new forms of stock will not have any third-quarter dividends.
The shares will first confront many AT&T investors when they see ``AT&T wd'' listed just beneath AT&T in their newspaper stock tables Saturday. One indication of the potential confusion is the roughly quarter of a million shareholder inquiries AT&T has fielded in the past two months.
``The amount of interest in that stock makes it distinctive,'' said Ray Pellecchia, spokesman for the New York Stock Exchange. ``If you had a stock that were not so widely held and not so active, you don't have to have when-issued trading, but it's good to offer it if you believe there will be a market for it.''
The process gives investors the chance to trade stock based on what the companies will soon be like. A similar method was used when AT&T broke up in 1984.
AT&T and Lucent will separate Sept. 30. On that day, investors who bought AT&T stock by Sept. 17 will divide 524.6 million shares of Lucent, about 80 percent of Lucent's overall value. The other 20 percent of Lucent was sold to the public in April.
Each AT&T shareholder will receive about one Lucent share for every three AT&T shares.
LENGTH: Short : 46 linesby CNB