Author Archives: Inelegant Investor
In July 2007, when Rio Tinto(RIO) announced it would be purchasing Alcan for $38.1 billion in the largest mining acquisition ever, new CEO Tom Albanese was ecstatic. His bold move, beating out a $27 billion hostile bid from former Alcan parent Alcoa(AA) proved disastrous. Earlier this year, Albanese was forced to resign after writing down over $25 billion… Read More »
As expected, Straight Path Communications(STRP) began trading today following its spin off from IDT(IDT). We previously described the interesting background of the new company’s CEO, David Jonas(we wonder how many other pulpit Rabbis run public companies). Rabbi Jonas is quite optimistic about the company’s prospects: SPCI’s President & Chief Executive Officer, David Jonas, said, “The spin-off of Straight… Read More »
When we last checked in with Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology in late March, it was days away from an April IPO of 17% of its stock by parent Harvard Bioscience(HBIO). Soon afterwards, HBIO announced the postponement of the IPO, citing market conditions. On May 1, the company abandoned its plan for an IPO and declared it would spin… Read More »
We admit that our knowledge of Australia is limited beyond knowing that it has immense strategic value in RISK. Given that, it’s not surprising that we had never heard of Amcor(AMC.AX,AMCRY), which turns out to be the worlds largest packaging company with a market capitalization exceeding $11 Billion. Until we heard today that it plans to spin off… Read More »
With the ink barely dry on its press release announcing the spin off of Project Flex(now known as Cooling Technology Solutions, Inc.), Epazz(EPAZ) has announced a second spin based on a vaporous idea. The company announced a heretofore unmentioned “business” that it would be spinning off that it is calling Project Human Power. What does this business do?… Read More »
Call us old fashioned, but we believe a public company should be a working business- not merely an idea. Shaun Passley, CEO of Epazz(EPAZ) clearly disagrees. As we discussed last week, he plans to spin out companies like cake batter from an out of control mixer. Since then, the company has announced its first spinoff, Project Flex, and… Read More »
The Wall Street Journal reports that Telecom Italia(TI) has put its planned spinoff of fixed line assets on hold following a decision by regulator AGCOM to cut the wholesale rates that others firms pay to the fixed line business. After an extraordinary board meeting, the former state-owned company said the continuation of the project is subject to verification… Read More »
While we’ve seen press releases from Epazz(EPAZ) before, we just never bothered writing about it. We hope you’ll forgive us. After all this nanocap has shared no specifics, just hype about a slew of upcoming spinoffs, from a company which itself has a market cap of under $2.5 million. The company’s hype-filled press release yesterday, titled “Epazz Transitioning… Read More »
We (and many others) had been puzzled by the strange strength in Orchard Supply Hardware(OSH) equity following its bankruptcy filing earlier this week. The bubble burst today when the company issued an announcement warning that equity was expected to be a complete loss. Orchard’s management has noticed high trading volume in Orchard’s Class A Common Stock and Series… Read More »
In the lead up to the separation of News Corp’s(NWSA) publishing arm from its global media business, the two pieces began trading today on a when-issued basis. The parent, global media company, which will be renamed 21st Century Fox and trade under the FOXA and FOX tickers began trading today as FOXAV. The publishing spinoff will take the… Read More »
In June, 2012, Barron’s wrote a favorable article about the prospects of Time Warner(TWX). A year later, with the stock up 63%, Barron’s revisits, and though it continues to like the company’s prospects, it concludes that the stock has gotten ahead of itself. Barron’s does believe that the upcoming spin off of Time Warner’s magazine publishing division will… Read More »
As we have written about previously, Pfizer(PFE), after conducting an IPO of 20% of Zoetis(ZTS) in January, has launched an exchange offer whereby shareholders may elect to exchange their Pfizer shares for Zoetis shares. The offer is expected to be completed this week, and, as a result, the S&P has decided that it is time for Zoetis to… Read More »
Eighteen months after it was spun off from Sears Holdings(SHLD), Orchard Supply Hardware(OSH) announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and had reached an agreement for Lowe’s Companies (LOW) to acquire most of its assets. We had been bullish on Orchard at the time of the spin. We were wrong. In its press release the company… Read More »
The saga of Siemens’ (SI) spinoff of Osram, which we first wrote about on March 18, 2011, and which recently survived a strange shareholder lawsuit, is drawing to a close. In a pair of presentations by Peter Löscher, President and CEO and by Joe Kaeser, CFO, the company included a July 8 date for the spinoff on a… Read More »
Last May, we wrote about a strategic review at Dole Food Co(DOLE) that we thought might lead to a spinoff. We haven’t followed up until now and there’s been lots of activity, none of it involving a spinoff, culminating in an offer this morning by Chairman and CEO David H. Murdock to purchase the 60% of the company… Read More »