(December 8 – 11:05 ET) – The Toronto Stock Exchange indexes will get radical surgery next week when Standard & Poor’s removes the exchangeable shares.

After the market close on Dec. 14, the exchangeable shares will be deleted and replaced with all-Canadian firms on the TSE 300 Composite, S&P/TSE Canadian MidCap, S&P/TSE Canadian SmallCap and TSE 100 and TSE 200 Indices.

Some of the stocks that will be dropped include: JDS Uniphase Corp., a couple of big financials in the form of Amvescap plc and Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., and some large resource firms, including Bowater, Burlington Resources and Weyerhaeuser.

Most of the companies are listed as exchangeables because they made significant Canadian acquisitions involving stock on a tax-free basis with the exchangeables. For example, Amvescap’s purchase of Trimark Financial Corp. earlier this year.

JDS is a firm that originated in Canada, but nevertheless ended up trading as an exchangeable share after its acquisition of California-based Uniphase a couple of years ago.

Among the stocks that will be added to the indexes are Winnipeg’s Assante Corp., which will go into the TSE 200 and the S&P/TSE Canadian SmallCap.

S&P will add names such as: Kasten Chase Applied Research Ltd., Micrologix Biotech Inc., Mullen Transportation Inc., Slater Steel Inc. and Trican Well Service Ltd.
-IE Staff