In order to promote fair competition, the former large public sector bus operators have been reconstituted as free-standing companies, and in some cases broken up.

"It is a free-standing company with a majority of outside, independent directors."

The changes, while minor, suggested that the company was clarifying and firming its management structure along the lines of a free-standing company.

For each four shares of Honeywell stock, shareholders will receive one share in the new, free-standing military company, Alliant Techsystems Inc.

However, only Moody's Corporation is a free-standing company.

CBS Records "will be run as a free-standing company, and we'll have a great deal more financial autonomy than we had at CBS," he said.

Fisher-Price is to be spun off from its Chicago-based parent in early January and become an independent, free-standing company that will be publicly traded.

But Mr. Milunovich and other analysts say they believe that the printer business is so profitable that spinning it off as a free-standing company would be good for investors.

It grew into a free-standing company that we run called Medical Billing Systems, which markets electronic billing systems for all phases of the medical transportation industry.

In a spinoff, a company gives its shareholders stock in a subsidiary, which becomes a free-standing company.