Bill Ackman loved its business model of purchasing companies with “mispriced” drugs and raising prices, but, under fire from regulators and legislators, Valeant(VRX) announced today that it will be completely changing its business model. Recent outrage about huge price increases for acquired drugs including public statements by Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have been a cause of the… Read More »
Chip Rewey is the manager of Third Avenue’s Value(TVFVX) and Small Cap Value(TVSVX) funds, having recently succeeded value investing legend Marty Whitman. Rewey was interviewed by Barrons.com yesterday, and shared his excitement about SPX Flow(FLOW), which was very recently spun off from SPX Corp(SPXC). Q:Have fears over oil and gas led you to other opportunities lately? A: SPX… Read More »
Posters featuring its iconic speedsters grace the walls of teenagers’ bedrooms around the world. Now, fans will have a chance to own a piece of the company. Management is busy on the road this week promoting an IPO of Ferrari. The company, 90% of which is owned by Fiat Chrysler(FCAU), will, naturally, trade under the ticker RACE. The IPO… Read More »
That was fast. A few months after outlining an M&A focused growth strategy, Gannett (GCI) is actually ‘walking the walk’ with the announced $280m buyout of the Journal Media Group (JMG). The offer of $12 in cash per share represented a sizable premium of over 40% to the previous close. Readers of this site should be familiar with both… Read More »
A few short hits for the end of the week… The WSJ busted out an activist report card analyzing the results of ‘what happens to large U.S. companies after an activist arrives’. Naturally, the outcome is ‘mixed’. That said, it’s certainly an interesting data set to parse through and one is able to sort by activist or by… Read More »
For years, a favorite speculation of the spinoff prognosticators has been that Amazon(AMZN) should spin off its fast growing Web Services business. These rumors have had little basis in reality. After all, Jeff Bezos does what he wants, and pays little heed to the whims of others. The buzz only intensified when Amazon recently began breaking out the… Read More »
A few links for a rain soaked Friday: Baxalta (BXLT) is getting a lot of attention in the press and this blog due to Shire’s(SHPG) hostile approach, but things haven’t been so quiet at parent Baxter International (BAX) either. Shortly after the spinoff, Dan Loeb’s Third Point unveiled a massive stake (close to 10%) in the healthcare product company. While… Read More »
While it was no Summer of Spin, the month of September witnessed plenty of activity on the spinoff front. In the days prior to month end: SPX Corporation (SPXC) spun off its flow products business into the aptly named SPX FLOW (FLOW) Fidelity National Financial Ventures (FNFV) unloaded part of its restaurant empire into J. Alexander Holdings (JAX) in a… Read More »
Yahoo’s (YHOO) planned Alibaba (BABA) stake spinoff was in serious limbo following notification from the IRS that it was declining to issue a private letter ruling blessing the planned transaction. The tricky part was that the government agency also didn’t say that it was objecting to the plan. Here is a good, easy to understand guide to the situation.… Read More »
It’s almost here. SPX Corporation (SPW) is set to complete the spinoff of SPX FLOW (FLOW-wi) this weekend and the new company will start trading under the ticker ‘FLOW’ on Monday. Shareholders will receive 1 share of FLOW for every SPW share owned and after the spin off, the parent company will change its ticker to ‘SPXC’. Sounds… Read More »
Fidelity National Financial (FNF) went on a buying spree during the crisis and snapped up an eclectic bunch of assets. The company set up a tracking stock, quite a rare breed, FNFV, in order to track the value of this eclectic group of businesses. After some prodding from Corvex Capital, the company is now in the process of monetizing… Read More »
Now, let me tell you a little bit about Bob Evans(BOBE). This ain’t no Bob’s Broccoli Buffet, this here is a pile your plate high with sausage and go back fer more kind of place. We reported in March that, despite pressure from Sandell Asset Management, the company would not be spinning off its packaged foods business, and… Read More »
Betting on distressed residential real estate became extraordinarily popular post-crisis and the space even attracted some big money names including Blackstone (BX) and Colony Capital (CLNY). Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Property Trust (STWD) was another entrant and in early 2014 the company spun off its single family residential real estate assets into the Starwood Waypoint Residential Trust (SWAY). The macro trends… Read More »
After ceasing buyout discussions with Ariad Pharmaceuticals (ARIA) due to disagreements over price, Baxalta (BXLT) is apparently still in play. The WSJ recently reported that Shire (SHPG) is still trying to consummate a deal with the drug company after having its hostile, all-stock offer rejected earlier this summer. As a quick refresher, Shire surprisingly unveiled an offer of 0.1687 ADRs… Read More »
The Dolan family has spent the better part of the decade spinning off assets. The dynasty behind Cablevision(CVC) spun off the Madison Square Garden Company(MSG) in 2010, followed by AMC Networks(AMCX) in 2011. Now, all three companies are in the midst of radical transformations. Early this morning, Cablevision announced that it would be acquired by French telecom Altice… Read More »