PTV Pactiv Corp.

Recent changes in the corporate-headquarters requirements for membership in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index have cleared the way for Ingersoll-Rand PLC. (IR), Tyco International Ltd. (TYC) and other companies to return to the index after being banished for incorporating off-shore.

S&P's index committee revealed Wednesday that Ingersoll will be added to the index Nov. 16, nearly a year and a half after the diversified industrial company was yanked off for moving its headquarters to Ireland from Bermuda. Ingersoll's return to the index is expected to boost the liquidity of the company's stock as mutual funds tied to the S&P 500 add Ingersoll to their portfolios.

"The S&P 500 opens up a number places where our shares have to be held and it opens up a wider network for our shares, which is always good," Chief Financial Officer Steve Shawley said Friday in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires.

S&P had said Ingersoll's move Ireland put the company too far afield from the index's requirement that members be limited to U.S.-based companies. But in May the index committee announced a series of revisions to its U.S. residency rules, concluding that the companies that incorporate outside of the U.S. mostly for tax purposes shouldn't automatically be excluded from the S&P 500, the Midcap 400 and the SmallCap 600 indices.

"We are essentially placing less emphasis on where a company is headquartered for tax purposes, and more on where the company's stock is primarily listed and where it generates most of its revenue from," said Dave Guarino, an spokesman for S&P indexes.

The index committee now considers whether candidates for the index file a Form 10-K annual report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; have a management structure consistent with U.S. practices; list their stock on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq Exchange; and whether the U.S. portion of their fixed assets and revenue makes up a plurality of the total amount.

Guarino said the changes reflect the increasingly global composition of U.S. public companies. Since the new policies were adopted, the index committee has been reviewing those companies pulled from the index in recent years for having off-shore headquarters.

Life insurance provider Ace Ltd. (ACE) was the first to be returned to the index on July 15. The company, which is based in Zurich, Switzerland, was removed from the index on July 2008. Diversified industrial company Tyco, which also is headquartered in Switzerland, returned to index Aug. 27 after being removed in March 2009.

Ingersoll manages several key operations from offices in North Carolina and New Jersey, even though its headquarters is in Swords, Ireland. Ingersoll, whose holdings include Trane heating and air-conditioning systems and Club Car golf carts, lobbied against its removal from the index in 2009 by urging the committee to consider many of the same factors that the panel later adopted for its revised eligibility standards.

"We were disappointed by the decision [to remove the company] but understood why the index committee did what they did. They were just following their rules," Shawley said.

Ingersoll will replace packaging manufacturer Pactiv Corp. in the S&P 500. The Illinois-based company is being acquired by a private-equity firm.

-By Bob Tita, Dow Jones Newswires; 312-750-4129; robert.tita@dowjones.com

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