Financings In Brief

Tyco Healthcare becomes Covidien: Device, diagnostic and drug manufacturer Tyco Healthcare spins off from parent firm Tyco International and is renamed Covidien, effective June 29. The firm begins independent trading on the New York Stock Exchange July 2 under the symbol COV. Tyco shareholders received one Covidien share for every four shares of the parent company held as of June 18. Generating nearly $10 billion in annual sales, Covidien's products include ventilators, sutures and surgical staplers, laparoscopic instruments, pulse oximetry devices, syringes, wound and incontinence care items and imaging agents. Key brands of the franchise include Autosuture, Devon, Kendall, Mallinckrodt, Nellcor, Puritan Bennett, Syneture and Valleylab. Tyco's non-medical electronics business (Tyco Electronics) also will trade independently from the firm's remaining security/fire protection business (Tyco International) following the reorganization. Plans for the spin-offs, intended to give each of the units increased focus and flexibility, were first announced in January 2006. The newly independent entities will continue to be based in Bermuda (1"The Gray Sheet" Jan. 23, 2006, p. 11)...