TransCanada Corp. announced Wednesday that it plans to change its name to TC Energy to better reflect the pipeline company’s scope of operations across North America.

The Calgary-based company that was created in 1951 said the name change is subject to regulatory and shareholder approval at the company’s next annual meeting in the second quarter of 2019. It plans to continue trading under the ticker TRP on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges.

 “We believe the name TC Energy clearly articulates our complete business – pipelines, power generation and energy storage operations – and reflects our continued continental growth into an enterprise with critical assets and employees in Canada, the United States and Mexico,” said Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive officer, in a release.

Fittingly, the name change was announced at an employee forum in Mexico City. Truth is, TransCanada is increasingly getting more of its revenue from outside Canada, where it built the 14,000 kilometer (8,700 mile) Mainline gas pipeline in the 1950s. The U.S. accounted for about 60 per cent of TransCanada’s revenue in 2017, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. About 36 per cent came from Canada and the rest from Mexico.

TransCanada, which diversified heavily into the U.S. with its US$10.2 billion Columbia Pipeline Group Inc. acquisition in 2016, signaled a name change more than a year ago by seeking trademarks on new company names that would excise its home country.

The pipeline builder and operator published the names TC Energy, TCE, Ventiv, Convergent and Northbow, according to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.

“I think it makes sense,” Lyle Stein, senior portfolio manager and managing director of Vestcap Investment Management, told BNN Bloomberg.

“This is not a Canadian company, and so I think to take the ‘Canada’ out reflects the reality of being a North American player.”

TransCanada’s shares have jumped 8.3 per cent this year, boosted by the rebound in oil prices.

With files from Bloomberg News