News Corp., the media company built by Rupert Murdoch, will join the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index after the close of trading on Dec. 17, S&P said on Tuesday.
The change is being made as News Corp., which earns roughly 80 percent of its profit in the United States and has corporate headquarters in New York, reincorporates in Delaware and shifts its main stock market listing to the New York Stock Exchange.
Shareholders overwhelmingly approved the reincorporation last month.
Built by Murdoch from a single newspaper in Adelaide, Australia, News Corp. now ranks as one of the world's biggest media empires. It owns the Fox Entertainment Group Inc. network, 20th Century Fox film studios, and many newspaper and satellite assets.
S&P said it will name the company that News Corp. will replace in its flagship stock index roughly three to five business days before News Corp.'s addition. News Corp. will be removed from the S&P/ASX indexes in four equal phases over a nine-month period ending in Sept. 2005, S&P said.
Changes in the S&P 500 index can cause added volatility or trading volume in shares of companies being added or removed. Many portfolio managers try to track the index and are required to buy or sell stocks that enter or leave it. The same is true for managers who track the S&P/ASX 200 index.
