PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Scandals rocked the life insurance industry in 1905, so investors in a new Fort

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Scandals rocked the life insurance industry in 1905, so investors in a new Fort Wayne, Ind., insurance company looked for a name to convey solid respectability.
The group of bankers, brokers, manufacturers, attorneys and doctors got permission from Abraham Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, to use the 16th president's name and his photo -- the same one engraved on the $5 bill -- on its letterhead.
Nearly a century later, Lincoln Financial Group is promoting the name again, after moving to a new part of the country, expanding into investment management and financial planning for the wealthy, and needing a rebound as sales and profits take a beating in the slow economy.
In its most dramatic step, the company bought the right to name the Philadelphia Eagles' new $520 million stadium Lincoln Financial Field.
The $140 million size and 20-year duration of the deal also are designed to send a message. "Having something of this size signals that we are here to stay, that we are a significant player, that we have longevity," said Susan Crabtree, a Lincoln vice president.
Success for an insurance and financial planning company depends on convincing customers of that, said Suneet Kamath, an analyst for Sanford Bernstein & amp; Co.
"Essentially what you're doing is selling a promise that you are going to be around at some point years from now," Kamath said.
Getting the name
Originally, the company didn't have to pay for the Lincoln name. Robert Todd Lincoln wrote Aug. 3, 1905, that he had "no objection whatever to the use of a portrait of my father upon the letterhead of such a life insurance company named after him as you describe..." He enclosed a picture taken in 1864 by a photographer at the Mathew Brady studio in Washington, D.C.
The company began decades of expansion, acquiring Reliance Life Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh by 1951 and the American States Insurance Companies of Indianapolis in 1962.
Lincoln National entered the mutual fund business in 1973 and the financial services business in 1985, acquiring Lynch & amp; Mayer Inc. of New York City.
Big expansions in investment management and financial planning capabilities came with the acquisitions of Philadelphia's Delaware Management Holdings investment company in 1995, Cigna's individual life insurance and annuity businesses in 1997 for $1.4 billion and Aetna's individual life insurance business for $1 billion in 1998.
Lincoln National moved its headquarters to Philadelphia that year. About 1,300 of Lincoln Financial Group's 5,700 employees are in Philadelphia, with others divided among Fort Wayne, Hartford, Conn., and London offices.
It has grown to 356th among Fortune 500 companies, with annual sales of $4.64 billion and profits of $91.6 million.
Downturn
The sagging economy has hurt expansion plans. Annual sales have dropped from $6.85 billion and profits from $621.4 million in 2000 as the downturn has cut into investment values and income and growth in insurance sales.
"I think ultimately the primary reason sales were weak and earnings were weak was related to the equity market," Kamath said. "If you believe that the equity markets are going to slowly come back, Lincoln should track that."
The stadium naming deal is designed to make Lincoln stand out, though some brand experts question the logic of putting brand names on arenas.
"You wonder what's the relevance of the stadium to the kind of business they're in," said Danny Altman, creative director of A Hundred Monkeys, a branding firm.
But naming stadiums gets results, according to a study in the Journal of Advertising Research by John M. Clark, assistant professor of finance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Clark and his colleagues studied 49 stadium naming deals and said 70 percent of the companies' stock prices went up. The average rise was greater than from other marketing programs such as Olympics sponsorships and celebrity endorsements, Clark reported.