Tracking Stocks: Investments in Make-Believe
MCI stock came back from the dead Friday, three years after shares of the pioneering Washington telephone company stopped trading when the company was sold to WorldCom Inc.</br></br>The resumption of trading means the $47 million merger, one of Washington's biggest ever, was a flop.</br></br>The new incarnation of MCI is also likely to be a flop for investors, based on what has happened to other companies that have used the financial gimmick that enabled WorldCom to resurrect MCI stock.</br></br>WorldCom isn't exactly divorcing MCI, but Chairman Bernie Ebbers is doing his darnedest to distance WorldCom's thriving data, Internet and international businesses from the boring, brutally competitive long-distance operations of MCI.</br></br>In a financial fantasy using an increasingly popular form of pseudo-security, Ebbers is not splitting his company in two, he's simply splitting his stock in two.