Friday, January 29, 1999
In a move widely anticipated by financial analysts, Intel Corp. has announced a 2-for-1 stock split that will make shares more affordable to investors.
Intel, the Santa Clara, Calif-based world-leading computer chipmaker with $26.2 billion in sales last year, said yesterday that the split takes effect April 11.
Investors greeted the news by bidding Intel up $4.43 3/4 at $137.18 3/4 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
The split would be the 12th since Intel went public 26 years ago. The last split, also 2-for-1, was in June 1997. The company has 1.67 billion shares of stock outstanding.
A $100 investment in Intel stock when it first went public in October 1971 would now be worth $397,597.
A split is usually interpreted as a sign that a company expects its stock to continue to climb.
Federal regulators refused for now to begin a process leading to mandatory sharing of cable television companies' high-speed lines. But they indicated yesterday they will monitor the situation to ensure that cable companies don't freeze out rivals.
Consumer groups, public interest advocates, America Online and others had pressed the Federal Communications Commission to force cable companies to give other companies access to those lines to offer competing services.
But in a report to Congress on the availability of high-speed connections, the FCC didn't recommend an inquiry into the matter, said Larry Strickling, chief of the agency's Common Carrier Bureau.
The average interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell to a six-week low of 6.74 percent this week from 6.78 percent last week, Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, said yesterday.
The average has remained below 7 percent for more than seven months. It reached a 31-year low of 6.49 percent in early October. Its peak last year was 7.22 percent in late April.
Fifteen-year mortgages, a popular option for refinancing, averaged 6.37 percent this week, down from 6.42 percent and also a six-week low. On one-year, adjustable-rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 5.57 percent, the same as last week.
Equity Office Properties trust has completed its purchase of City Center Bellevue, a 27-story office building, for $115.9 million.
The Chicago-based real estate investment trust also bought from Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. future development rights of an adjacent parcel of land on which two more buildings could be constructed.
This report includes information from P-I staff and The Associated Press.