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Saturday, July 17, 1999 Microsoft's Value Tops $500 Billion By GEORGE TIBBITS, AP Business Writer SEATTLE--Investors continued their love affair with Microsoft Corp., making the software giant the first company to be worth more than half a trillion dollars as its stock price surged on a positive jury verdict and a rumor. Microsoft's stock was up $5.06 1/4 to close at $99.43 3/4 a share Friday in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. With more than 5.1 billion shares outstanding, Microsoft was worth about $507 billion. The No. 2 company, General Electric, was worth about $384 billion. At current stock prices, company chairman Bill Gates would be worth more than $100 billion, based on the more than 1 billion Microsoft shares he was listed as owning in a Feb. 11 proxy statement. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, with more than 276 million shares, is worth more than $27 billion. Microsoft received one boost Friday when a federal court jury in Connecticut ruled it had not violated federal antitrust laws in its dealings with Bristol Technology Inc., a small software company. In a separate development, The Wall Street Journal reported Microsoft, which will report its annual earnings Monday, is moving closer to creating a tracking stock for its Internet businesses to take advantage of the stock market's infatuation with the Internet. A tracking stock is designed to give investors the opportunity to focus on just one aspect of the company's business without creating a separate publicly traded company. A Microsoft spokeswoman declined comment on the Journal report. Microsoft's MSN.com is one of the most-visited sites on the Web, and includes such services as Hotmail e-mail, the Expedia travel site and the CarPoint auto buying service. Although critics assail Microsoft's take-no-prisoners competitiveness, investors have favored a company with large profit margins, rapidly growing sales and no debt. Microsoft's phenomenal rise has created countless millionaires and made founders Gates and Allen two of the richest men on Earth. Search the archives of the Los Angeles Times for similar stories. You will not be charged to look for stories, only to retrieve one. Copyright Los Angeles Times