Chevron and Phillips decide on new name with coin toss

Monday, April 17th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

BAYTOWN, Texas (AP) -- It happens at the Super Bowl every year: a coin toss to see who gets the ball first. But what about a corporate boardroom coin toss to decide a new joint venture's name?

Two companies -- Chevron Corp. and Bartlesville, Okla.-based Phillips Petroleum Co., which agreed to a 50/50 joint venture of their chemical businesses in early February -- tried other methods but in the end decided that an old-fashioned coin toss was the best way to arrive at the new name: Chevron-Phillips.

"Lots of names were suggested," Chevron spokesman Mickey Driver told the Baytown Sun in Sunday's editions. "Our employees suggested names. We even thought about hiring a consultant to help select a name."

According to Driver, the California-based oil giant preferred Chevron-Phillips while Phillips wanted the name to be Phillips-Chevron. To solve the dilemma, a gold coin was struck with each version of the name imprinted.

Meeting at Phillips' offices in Clear Lake, Texas, the coin was tossed and landed face up with the Chevron-Phillips side showing.

Chevron employs 31,000 people worldwide and has about $40 billion in assets.

Phillips had 15,900 employees and $15 billion of assets at the end of 1999.

Chevron-Phillips is expected to be one of the world's top five producers of the olefins and polyolefins used to manufacture basic chemicals and plastics.

"Currently, both companies have been working to finalize the paperwork to meet all legal requirements, including approval by the Federal Trade Commission," Driver told the Sun.

"That is all ontrack. We are projecting the approval and merger to be completed in the next couple of months."

The new company, which will have assets of more than $6 billion, will be based in Houston. The joint venture will employ up to 6,000 people.