(FORTUNE Magazine) – Looking for dramatic capital gains? Some of the biggest potential jackpots for investors, Wall Streeters figure, are in companies that are dramatically reshuffling assets. Restructuring, which can lift stock prices far higher than a climb in corporate earnings, takes many forms. Companies can shed underperforming businesses or acquire others that look promising. They can also liquidate an overfunded pension fund, or buy back stock. The aim is to enrich shareholders. That's what happened at Celanese. The producer of man-made fibers and chemicals bought back stock last year, and then revamped its pension fund, unlocking $190 million of excess cash. Though chemical sales have remained soft, Celanese stock is up from less than $65 per share a year ago to a recent $119, and the company has just announced that it will buy more shares. Is the restructuring craze likely to go on? ''I'm optimistic,'' says Michael Sherman, chief investment strategist at Shearson Lehman Brothers and an early proponent of investing in companies that shift assets. One of his favorite prospects for future gains is Firestone Tire & Rubber. For several years Firestone has been shutting down marginal operations, including seven outmoded tire plants in the U.S. It also recently completed buying 28% of its outstanding common stock, and terminated its pension fund, freeing $260 million in cash.

The stock has hardly budged so far, because most of Wall Street has soured on Firestone following an unexpected decline in earnings late last year. Contributing to the drop was the company's underestimate of Detroit automakers' tire needs; to fulfill supply contracts, Firestone had to buy tires on the open market. Earnings have since recovered, and Sherman figures investors will soon forget the recent embarrassments and focus on Firestone's new financial strength. Freeport-McMoRan has taken a different route to restructuring. In 1983 the company spun off part of its oil and gas operations by creating trust units that trade separately on the New York Stock Exchange. In April the company sold part of its remaining oil and gas operations, and then sold a 10% interest in its gold-mining business in a public offering. Ronald Shorr, a security analyst at Bear Stearns, figures that the company might ultimately spin off all its remaining businesses, including sulfur and copper. Broken into pieces, Shorr estimates, Freeport's businesses are worth more than $40 a share, twice the recent market price. You wouldn't think that Ralston Purina, the giant pet food producer, would need to tinker much with its operations. The company's return on shareholders' equity is already on the high side of 20%. But Ralston management isn't satisfied. It recently shut down the company's San Diego tuna cannery, a chronic underachiever, and withdrew from soybean processing. Most recently, Ralston moved to sell the Jack in the Box fast-food chain, though negotiations stalled when Jack in the Box's earnings didn't spring up as expected in the latest quarter. Burton Siegel, director of research at Drexel Burnham Lambert, finds Ralston among the best restructuring plays around: ''It's one of the few stocks that doesn't yet reflect the positive changes that management is making.'' Another of Siegel's favorites, though not for the fainthearted, is Cooper Industries, which produces a wide variety of machinery and equipment. The recent acquisition of McGraw-Edison, a maker of electrical and industrial products, has left Cooper with a mountain of debt amounting to more than half of capitalization. But Siegel believes the heavy debt load will spur management to trim costs and sell off marginal businesses. At this point, he says, the payoffs are a couple of years away. But that, he adds, is a reason for getting into Cooper now. Some cash-rich companies are attractive because of the moves they could afford to make. Ford Motor is tanked up with $31.50 of cash per share. Wall Streeters cite an unsuccessful multibillion-dollar bid for Hughes Aircraft as evidence of the automaker's yen to diversify. Analysts at Zimbalist Smith, a Connecticut-based research firm specializing in finding investment opportunities in restructuring companies, figure that a Ford acquisition in the high-tech area could improve a chronically depressed price-earnings multiple based on heavy dependence on the cyclical auto business. The stock price, these analysts estimate, could jump 20%.

CHART: . COMPANY 1984 NET STOCK PRICE RECENT REVENUES INCOME RANGE PRICE in millions in millions last 12 months P/E multiple 3 Ford Motor $52,366.0 $2,906.8 $34.625-$51.375 $44.50 2.9 Ralston $4,980.1 $242.7 $25.75-$46.875 $45.25 Purina1 16.2 Firestone $4,001.0 $102.0 $16.125-$22.375 $21.00 Tire & Rubber 2 9.0 Cooper $2,029.9 $106.9 $27.00-$35.50 $34.50 Industries 15.7 Freeport- $842.2 $94.2 $13.50-$22.125 $18.50 McMoRan 13.2 1Figures are for fiscal year that ended September 30. 2Figures are for fiscal ear that ended October 31. 3Based on earnings for the past four quarters.