Visteon Gets Boot from S&P 500

Former Ford electronics subsidiary Visteon Corp. has been dropped from the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, bumped in favour of media and entertainment corporation Viacom’s spinoff of its CBS unit.
Visteon’s market capitalization, currently less than $850 million U.S. is less than the market capitalization of $4 billion U.S. that is typical of other S&P 500 companies.
The auto supplier, whose market cap has frequently slipped below $1 billion this year, was bumped when S&P decided to allow Viacom Inc.’s CBS Corp. split-off into the fund. Viacom had been trading as a single entity and was already in the S&P 500.
Visteon has not commented on the decision.
According to analysts, the move is likely to trigger a selling of Visteon shares by some institutional investors. Many funds strictly hold S&P 500 companies, while other funds have some flexibility in how they use the 500 Index as a benchmark.
Shares of Visteon traded at $6.43, down 43 cents, or 6.3%, on volume of 1.5 million compared to average daily volume of 2.2 million.
The auto supplier’s stock fell as low as $3.14 on May 11 prior to a bailout orchestrated by former parent Ford Motor Co.. Ford agreed to take 23 North American manufacturing plants and facilities from the company and grant its top supplier price increases, loans and advanced payments. The bailout sent Visteon shares immediately trading at prices in excess of $8 and the share price eventually neared $11 as details of Ford’s bailout became clearer.