ELAN Corporation is to split its shares, with two new shares being issued for every share held. This will result in the unit price of Elan shares falling from their current level of $61.37 (£39) to $20.45 (£12.99) while the number of shares in issue will increase from 37.55 million to 112.65 million. The change is subject to shareholder approval at the a.g.m. on June 27th.

In addition, Elan is to change its reporting currency from pounds to US dollars to reflect the dominance of dollar revenues and expenses in Elan's net income. Elan is also changing the end of its financial year to December from March.

Elan is listed on the Irish Stock Exchange, but rarely trades and when it does it is usually a catching up adjustment relative to the New York price. An Elan spokesman said that there are no plans to relinquish the Dublin listing.