After doing business in the United States for more than 100 years and assembling an array of products ranging from aspirin to Flintstones vitamins, most observers might conclude Bayer Corp. is an American company.

        But the German-based drug and chemical conglomerate, which employs more than 500 at its Addyston plastics plant, hasn't had its shares listed on that symbol of American capitalism, the New York Stock Exchange.

        That will end Thursday, when Bayer — with global sales of $29 billion — begins trading on the NYSE under the symbol BAY.

        “Everybody thinks Bayer is an all-American company, but we are not. We need to be on the exchange,” said Dr. Attila Molnar, head of Bayer's North American operations and a member of its managing board.

        The NYSE listing, designed to increase the company's financial flexibility, is part of a broader restructuring in which the company will split into four operating subsidiaries under a central holding company by early next year.

        The four operating units are health care, crop science, polymers and chemicals.

        The NYSE listing will give Bayer greater currency for future acquisitions as well as allow it to launch stock ownership programs for its 23,000 U.S. employees.

        Dr. Molnar said employee stock ownership has gotten a bad rap in the wake of the Enron Corp. scandal. “We are not Enron,” he said. “What's happened at Enron won't happen at Bayer.”

        Bayer has had its own setbacks over the last year. Last week the company disclosed as many as 100 deaths have been linked to Baycol, the cholesterol drug it withdrew from the market last August.

        Bayer's Addyston plant, which produces acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, a resin used to make durable plastic parts, launched its own streamlining effort more than a year ago with plans to eliminate 200 jobs, mainly through retirement and attrition by the end of next year. The plant, which employed about 650, has cut its payroll by about 90, said Bill Ward, plant manager.

        Dr. Molnar said the Addyston restructuring, while “a painful process,” was necessary to become competitive with a rival producing the ABS resins in Mexico.

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