Pentair’s nVent Electric Spinoff To Join S&P Midcap 400 Today

Pentair’s (PNR) completed the spinoff of its electrical business, nVent Electric (NVT), after the close yesterday. The new company will commence trading on the NYSE today and shareholders should have received one share of NVT for every PNR share owned. Pentair CEO John Stauch wished his colleagues at nVent much ‘success’ and believes Pentair is now ‘well positioned to deliver on its strategic initiatives as a pure play residential and commercial water treatment.’ Very well positioned, especially after cleaning up its balance sheet by dumping a heap of debt onto the spinco. Good luck guys!

For those interested in the index ramifications of the spinoff, following the distribution, nVent Electric will join the S&P Midcap 400 Index taking the place of a former spinoff, Knowles Corporation (KN). The acoustics company will replace DHI Group Inc (DHX) in the S&P Smallcap 600. Sorry DHI. Long time StockSpinoffs fans (there must be a few of you out there) will recognize Knowles as a 2014 spinoff from Dover Corporation (DOV). Coincidentally, in a few weeks Dover will finalize another spinoff, this time of Apergy, its upstream energy business. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to have improved in the naming department over the past few years, but when compared to nVent Electric…maybe they’re not so bad. Pentair will remain in the S&P 500 so there is the potential, for what degree it still exists, for forced selling.

If the company still existed today, we would wish a hearty congrats to ‘grandparent’ Tyco, whose flow business was spun off and subsequently merged into Pentair back in 2012. The amazing thing is that nVent isn’t even its first ‘grandchild’ – that would be Covidien spinoff Mallinckrodt (MNK). Although Tyco doesn’t exist in name anymore, we can now add the nVent spinoff to the family tree and safely rank it up there as the worst named one of the group.

Disclosure: Author holds no position in any stock mentioned.