Kraft Heinz is taking its shares off Nasdaq and putting them on the New York Stock Exchange, and leaving four bond listings behind
The stock is leaving Nasdaq. Four bond listings are staying.
The Kraft Heinz Company told the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday morning that its board has authorised the withdrawal of its common stock from the Nasdaq Global Select Market and a transfer of that listing to the New York Stock Exchange. Trading on Nasdaq is expected to end at the close on 11 September. Trading on the NYSE is expected to begin at the open on 14 September, under the same four letters, KHC, which the company says has already been approved.
The disclosure sits under Item 3.01, the heading for a notice of delisting or a failure to satisfy a continued listing standard. Read the rest of that item's title and the point is clear: it also covers a transfer of listing, and this is the voluntary kind. Nothing in the filing describes a compliance problem.
What is not moving
Four series of senior notes are registered alongside the common stock, and the filing deals with them in one sentence. The 3.500 per cent notes due 2029, the 3.500 per cent notes due 2031, the 3.250 per cent notes due 2033 and the 3.950 per cent notes due 2034 "will continue to be listed on The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC", each under its own symbol, KHC29 through KHC34.
So from 14 September one issuer has its equity on one exchange and its listed debt on the other.
The reason given
The 8-K itself supplies none. What comes with it is a press release, furnished under Item 7.01 rather than filed, which is the lighter of the two liability treatments and the company says so on the page.
That release carries two quotations and no numbers about the move. Steve Cahillane, the chief executive, calls it "an exciting milestone in Kraft Heinz's transformation" and says the exchange is "a natural home" for the company as it enters "our next chapter". Lynn Martin, president of NYSE Group, welcomes the company. Neither speaker says what the transformation is, and neither document says what the move costs or saves.
Andre Maciel, the global chief financial officer, signed the filing.
