The new changes are prompted by the losses, estimated at $875 million annually, by firms dealing in British shares.

British American shares fell 3.5 percent here, to $:5.165, or $8.37.

Analysts cite two main reasons for the rise in the stock and equity units, each of which equals five British shares.

The company's American depository receipts will be split on a comparable basis to the British shares.

Later in the century the number shipped may have risen to as many as 100,000 a year, and the British share of the total certainly became larger.

The British share this view.

The British preferred shares are redeemable in 2015.

British shares ended mostly lower in thin trading yesterday, unsettled by a slide in world bond prices.

The British share of the pepper to be delivered at a price fixed by the British in December 1792.

Such systems are designed to re-establish a central market in British shares.