Marathon Petroleum To Join S&P 500 Index

Standard & Poor's said Thursday it would move Marathon Petroleum Corp., the downstream business of Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO), to its S&P 500 index, replacing consumer electronics seller RadioShack Corp. (RSH).

Marathon Petroleum, officially set to become its own company at the end of the month, will operate six refineries having a combined capacity of 1.1 million barrels a day. Marathon Oil, meanwhile, will remain in the S&P 500 index following the spin-off.

RadioShack will replace marketer Harte-Hanks Inc. (HHS) in the S&P MidCap 400 index, with the latter company bumping Hutchinson Technology Inc. (HTCH) from the S&P SmallCap 600. S&P said RadioShack's $1.4 billion market capitalization is more representative of the mid-cap space, while Harte-Hanks' $530 million market value is more in line with the small-cap space.

Hutchinson, a provider of suspension assemblies for disk drives, had been ranked 600 in the SmallCap index.

Among the other changes announced Thursday was a move by Cablevision Systems Corp.'s (CVC) cable network AMC Networks Inc. to the MidCap 400, replacing Boyd Gaming Corp. (BYD). Cablevision is spinning off AMC to its shareholders in a transaction expected to be completed June 30.

The changes will occur after the close of trading on June 30.

   -By John Kell, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2480; [e-mail]