(Recasts, updates with another analyst upgrade, stock close)

By Steve James

NEW YORK, March 19 (Reuters) - Phelps Dodge Corp. PD.N, one of the most famous names in U.S. mining, moved from ledger books into history books on Monday as Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) completed a $25.9 billion acquisition to form the world's largest publicly traded copper company.

Bear Stearns immediately raised its investment rating of the new Freeport, saying the acquisition of Phelps Dodge will increase Freeport shareholders' earnings immediately.

And BMO Capital Markets raised its share target price for the mining company and revised its estimates, forecasting increased earnings and copper and gold deliveries.

Announcing completion of the deal, Freeport Chief Executive Officer Richard Adkerson said the combined company -- to be called Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold -- will have large, long-lived, geographically diverse assets and significant proven and probable reserves of copper, gold and molybdenum.

Freeport, whose only major project up to now has been the vast Grasberg gold mine in Indonesia, acquires Phelps' mines in South America and the U.S. Southwest, as well as the rich Tenke Fungurume copper and cobalt project in Democratic Congo.

"These assets will deliver significant copper volumes to an attractive market place, providing substantial cash flows that will enable us to invest in growth projects and reduce debt rapidly," Adkerson said.

Freeport is moving its corporate headquarters from New Orleans to Phoenix, Arizona, closer to Phelps' U.S. copper mines. With the acquisition, it marks the end of a name that had done business in America since before the Civil War.