A few short hits to close off the week: The Economist had a short piece looking at some of the challenges faced by both companies following HP’s (HPQ) spinoff of its services business HP Enterprise (HPE). While both companies have scale and more focused operations, the future for each company is murky. The PC business is shrinking and… Read More »
One of the highlights of the ‘Summer of Spin’ was eBay’s (EBAY) spin off of payments processor PayPal (PYPL). Several activists had been pushing hard for the spin, including Carl Icahn, who at one point, engaged in a heated war of words with the company and then CEO John Donahoe. Although he ultimately struck a deal with a… Read More »
General Electric(GE) announced the results of its exchange offer for Synchrony Financial(SYF) common stock this morning. The exchange, which ended last night at midnight, was oversubscribed by 3.2 times, with “2,149,128,195 shares of GE common stock were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn.” The company will “accept 671,366,809 of the tendered shares in exchange for the 705,270,833 shares… Read More »
Last month, we reported speculation that Starwood Hotels(HOT) would be acquired by one of three Chinese hoteliers or Hyatt Hotels(H). An acquisition was indeed in the offing, but by a company unmentioned in those previous reports- Marriott International(MAR). Marriott announced yesterday that it would be acquiring Starwood for $12.2 billion. Not to worry, spinoff fans. Starwood’s spinoff of… Read More »
Earlier this year, the WSJ reported that ATM maker NCR Corp (NCR) was considering its strategic options, including a possible spinoff. A little digging revealed a spinoff to be a low probability choice and that a buyback or dividend seemed more likely to be in the cards as a new ‘shareholder friendly’ activity. Shortly thereafter though, the company… Read More »
A few short hits to kick off the week: Marketfolly posts a copy of Third Point Capital’s Q3 newsletter in which chief Dan Loeb talks about the firm’s position in Baxter International (BAX). Mr. Loeb is a big fan of new CEO Jose ‘Joe’ Almeida which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given that the fund’s board representative helped… Read More »
Last night, GE(GE) set the final ratio for its exchange offer at 1.0505 shares of Synchrony(SYF) common stock for each share of GE tendered. At GE’s closing price on Thursday of $30.16 and Synchrony’s close of $30.79, this represents $32.34 worth of Synchrony stock, or a premium of 7.2%. GE shareholders have until midnight, Monday night, November 16… Read More »
Despite the urging of some investors, McDonald’s (MCD) will not spin off its real estate assets into a REIT. The much awaited decision was revealed by CEO Steve Easterbrook at the company’s investor meeting held earlier this week. The company spent a long time studying tax advantages and analyzing multiple benefits of the move and ultimately concluded that the… Read More »
Mallinckrodt(MNK) began the week trading at $70 per share. Six months ago, it was above $130. Today, after some comments from Andrew Left of Citron Research, it trades at $62.58, having touched as low as $52.01. The drug company was spun off of Covidien in 2013. Covidien, which had spun out of Tyco(TYC), was acquired in 2014 by… Read More »
Despite what appeared to be reasonable improvement in the first quarter since its spinoff from DuPont(DD), The Chemours Company(CC) stock has continued its downward spiral. The company which began when-issued trading at $21 in late June, closed at $6.43 yesterday. As we have discussed previously, the company is burdened with $4 billion in debt, plus unknowable environmental liability.… Read More »
Canadian company COM DEV International(CDV.TO) announced that Honeywell(HON) will purchase the company for C$455 million ($345 million USD). Concurrent with the purchase, COM DEV will spin off its stake in exactEarth to shareholders. exactEarth will become an independent, publicly traded company. (i) Honeywell will acquire the equipment business of COM DEV by way of an acquisition of all of… Read More »
Computer Sciences Corporation(CSC) announced that its Board had approved the spinoff and subsequent merger of CSRA, as well as a $10.50 special dividend. After the market close on Friday, November 27(which is the day after Thanksgiving and will be at 1PM), CSC shareholders as of November 18 will receive one share of CSRA for each share of CSC held.… Read More »
Just two days after setting the date for its Associated Capital Group(AC) spinoff, GAMCO Investors(GBL) has pushed it back eleven days in order to “to coincide with month-end.” One wonders what went on behind the scenes that caused the Board(and by Board, we mean Mario Gabelli) to reconsider so quickly. Presumably, the Board was previously aware that November… Read More »
On Wednesday, Exterran Holdings completed its spinoff of Exterran Corporation(EXTN) and changed its name to Archrock, Inc.(AROC). Not to be confused with a defunct seafood restaurant, or a small brewery, or perhaps the next new comic book villain, Archrock “is the leading provider of natural gas contract compression services to customers throughout the United States and a leading… Read More »
One does not need a particular gift for forecasting the future to know that magazines are in the midst of an inexorable decline. No doubt, there is still some profit left to be made, but it will be less and less each year. Joe Ripp certainly knows this. As CEO of Time, Inc.(TIME), his job is to transform… Read More »