Following is an article from the Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz regarding Israeli companies losing their "F"
Israeli shares lose their 'F' on NASDAQ
By Ami Ginzburg, Ha'aretz Correspondent
Israeli shares trading on NASDAQ are rushing to take advantage of a recent decision by the stock exchange's chiefs that non-American companies will no longer be forced to append the letter "F," for "foreign," to their ticker symbol or code name. Five Israeli corporations - Checkpoint, BVR Systems, Galileo, Rit Technologies and Aladdin - announced last week that they are happily losing that F; the other Israeli shares are sure to follow quickly.
Each company trading on the American exchange is given a ticker, or (usually) five-letter code name. ECI Telecom, for instance, trades under the ticker ECILF, Scitex under SCIFX, Gilat under GILTF and Elron under ELRNF.
"Semi-Israeli shares," which are companies registered in America but that operate mainly in Israel, did not have to add the distinguishing F. This list includes companies like Comverse and Mercury, which trade as CMVT and MERQ respectively.The F category was created when NASDAQ sought to woo foreign companies; to add to its attractions, NASDAQ's disclosure requirements for foreign companies were less stringent than those required of American companies. For example, a foreign company can give the Securities and Exchange Commission a pre-issue prospectus using a "confidential" procedure, in which many details are confidential and not made available to the public domain. Nor do foreign companies have to disclose certain details, such as managerial salaries, in their annual statements, as American companies must. In fact, periodic financial statements by Israeli companies trading on NASDAQ are less tightly regulated than they would be if produced under the eye of the Israeli securities watchdog.
Another aspect of this preferential treatment, however, was the appending of the "F" for foreign to the company's ticker. For certain investors, the F turned into a kind of mark of Cain, a warning to the investor that this is a secretive, foreign company.Now NASDAQ has rescinded the F requirement, but has not forced foreign companies to adhere to stricter reporting requirements - not yet, anyway. Now the companies can really party: They need not disclose as much as their American counterparts, but can shed that mark of Cain
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