NEW YORK (Reuters) - Trying to improve its image and reflect its ``peak'' performance, consumer products giant Philip Morris Cos Inc. (NYSE:MO - news) on Thursday said it is proposing a name change to Altria Group Inc.

Altria is a coined term that comes from ``altus'' -- the Latin word for ``high'' -- Philip Morris told Reuters. The name was chosen to highlight the company's peak performance, said Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs Steven Parrish. ``People either generally thought we were a tobacco company, or a tobacco company that owned some food and beer companies,'' Parrish said. The proposal is a way for the company to ``clear up that confusion,'' he added. Coincidentally, news of the planned change came on the 25th anniversary of the ``Great American Smokeout,'' a day sponsored by the American Cancer Society (news - web sites) to encourage smokers to quit. Philip Morris companies include cigarette units Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International, Miller Brewing Co., and a majority stake in Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE:KFT - news). Early reviews of the name change were mixed. Parrish said that Philip Morris employees, told about the proposed change on Thursday afternoon, were positive about the change. A room at the company's New York headquarters ``erupted in applause'' when the name and logo were announced, Parrish said. But prominent tobacco analyst Martin Feldman, of Salomon Smith Barney, said he still likes the name Philip Morris. ``I don't think the word Altria is an improvement over Philip Morris,'' Feldman said. ``I think many of ... the challenges it's facing are embodied in the current company name, and I think it wants its new name to reflect the broad nature of the group ... I would have preferred an English name to a semi-Latin name.'' STILL SMOKING What about antitobacco activists who may see this is an attempt by Philip Morris to distance itself from litigation and other negative issues surrounding tobacco and smoking? ``To them, I say that we are not walking away from the name Philip Morris, we are not walking away from tobacco,'' Parrish said. ``This is not to confuse, it is to clarify.'' Parrish said that the proposed change is not a prelude to a spinoff of its food, tobacco, or beer businesses. Since Philip Morris is incorporated in Virginia, under state law shareholders must approve the name change. Shareholders would have to approve the name change by a majority vote at the next annual meeting, to be held in Richmond, Virginia on April 25, 2002, Philip Morris said. The company decided to take a closer look at changing its name following its acquisition of Nabisco, which is part of Kraft Foods, and the subsequent initial public offering of Kraft Foods. Philip Morris had planned to announce it was considering a name change at an analyst conference that was to have been held in New York on Sept. 17. That conference was canceled in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. The proposed logo resembles a square mosaic composed of bright colors. Parrish said that those colors were chosen to represent the company's brands around the world. There has been no decision yet on whether Philip Morris will change its symbol. The company currently trades under the symbol ``MO,'' but there is no ``M'' or ``O'' in Altria. The current tagline on many of the company's advertisements, ``Working to make a difference, the people of Philip Morris,'' is set to become ``Altria: Where people and performance make a difference.'' IT'S ALL THE SAME, ONLY THE NAMES HAVE CHANGED Under the proposal, domestic tobacco unit Philip Morris USA, international tobacco unit Philip Morris International, Kraft, and beer unit Miller Brewing Co. would keep their names. The company's management corporation, currently called Philip Morris Management Corp., would become Altria Corporate Services under the proposal. Philip Morris Capital Corp., its financial services unit, would become Altria Capital Corp. Parrish said that the company retained branding consultants Landor Associates a little over a year ago to work on the idea. He said that some other names were tested, but Altria emerged as the clear consensus preference by the corporate officers and managers who sat on the committee for the project. A committee of about a dozen people included Chairman and Chief Executive Geoffrey Bible, Chief Financial Officer Louis Camilleri, Parrish, and others. ``I think 3-4 years from now, people will look back and say, 'that was probably a good thing to have done,''' said Morgan Stanley tobacco analyst David Adelman. ``I don't think it will change public attitudes today, but with the passage of time it will be looked back upon as something beneficial.'' Parrish said that the company plans ads in Monday's editions of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Post, USA Today, and Investor's Business Daily. An ad will also appear in the next issue of Barron's. The company also plans to do some advertising to promote the name if and when it earns shareholder approval next year. The Philip Morris coronet logo, first introduced in 1919, will still appear on cigarette packages and will still be the logo of PM USA and PMI, Parrish said.

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