When we last checked in on Dan Loeb’s Third Point it was mid 2017 and the fund was cruising while also singing the praises of Baxter International (BAX). Unfortunately, 2018 was a rough year for the firm and performance, at -11.3%, lagged the overall S&P 500. Market Folly shares the fund’s recent Q4 mea culpa letter which offers… Read More »
Dearest Readers, we have a confession to make. We fell short of the sacred trust you have placed in us, and were, somehow remiss. You see, it seems, that other than to mention an index change, we never discussed Air Products and Chemicals (APD) October 2016 spinoff of Versum Materials (VSM). We apologize profusely for this breach and… Read More »
Update on M&A Canyon Capital offered $12/share to acquire student loan processor Navient (NAVI), but the student loan servicing company’s management forcefully and publicly rejected the proposal. Basically, management felt the offer undervalued the company and want a bid more in the $14-15 range. Canyon was apparently surprised by the hostile tone since the offer represented a significant premium… Read More »
This summer will mark the 50th anniversary of Don Fisher opening the first Gap(GPS) store in San Francisco. That initial store opened just days after Woodstock and a month after Neil Armstrong took his small step and, it initially sold only Levi’s jeans and records. Fisher’s concept was that his store would always have every size in stock… Read More »
Feedback was overwhelmingly positive to last month’s piece so we are going to make it a monthly ‘thing’. As a reminder, although we update our tables as new information is released, we recognize that not everyone is constantly hitting refresh in order to see when a distribution date might get posted (please do so in the future though).… Read More »
Wabtec(WAB) was excited to announce this that it had completed its merger with GE Transportation, immediately following GE Transportation’s spinoff from GE(GE). GE shareholders will see small amounts of Wabtec in their portfolios. The final ratio is a bit lower than what had been estimated. For each share of GE stock owned, shareholders received 0.005371 shares of Wabtec stock,… Read More »
On the day it finalizes its spinoff of GE Transportation and merges it with Wabtec(WAB), GE(GE) announces an even larger divestiture, selling off its Biopharma unit to Danaher(DHR) for $21 billion in cash. Danaher will also take on $400 million in pension liabilities. GE CEO Larry Culp, former CEO of Danaher has taken another major step in shrinking… Read More »
There’s a lot of news to report as GE(GE) completes its spinoff of GE Transportation on Monday, February 25 and merges it with Wabtec(WAB) immediately thereafter. As we theorized last week, the bulked-up Wabtec will be added to the S&P 500, replacing Goodyear Tire(GT). Goodyear will take Wabtec’s place in the S&P MidCap 400, making this a neat… Read More »
Madison Square Garden (MSG) is currently in the process of breaking itself up again, this time into a sports team business (ex. Knicks and Rangers) and a venue/concerts business. Naturally, this has led to more people taking a look at the name and the upcoming catalyst has Barron’s thinking the company offers a lot of upside. The company’s… Read More »
The vision of an independent Alcon is getting closer to reality. As part of its year end earnings release, Novartis (NVS) revealed many more details about the upcoming eye care spinoff which is expected to be completed in the first half of this year. It seems the target is actually sometime in April, but first shareholders will have their… Read More »
The boom in spinoff activity over the past few years has been aided greatly by the boom in activist investing. In this edition of Odds & Ends we check in on some activists. Other hedge funds may be shuttering, but it seems this segment remains hot! When something works, the financial industry knows how to milk it, but… Read More »
From its spinoff from Biogen(BIIB) in February 2017 to the closing of its acquisition by Sanofi(SNY) in March 2018, Bioverativ’s tenure as a public company was short but profitable. From an initial price of $44.98 to the sale price of $105 in cash, Bioverativ stock, trading under the symbol BIVV, increased 133%. Not bad for 13 months. We… Read More »
Last month, Arconic(ARNC) announced suddenly that it had failed to find a buyer willing to pay enough for the whole company and was ending the sale process. Now, it is trying a different approach, announcing that it plans to spin off one of two businesses: Engineered Products & Forgings or Global Rolled Products. It will also attempt to sell… Read More »
GE (GE) is set to close the restructured merger agreement for its transportation business with Wabtec (WAB) on February 25th. As a result, the 25th will also be the distribution date for GE’s transportation business spin off which will be immediately merged into Wabtec. The end result will be a more vertically integrated freight car business that is… Read More »
Why is Henry Schein(HSIC) stock down sharply today? What is this CVET stock suddenly in my portfolio? We’ve been talking about it a lot, but Covetrus(CVET) is finally here. After the market closed yesterday, Henry Schein completed its spinoff of Covetrus, distributing Covetrus stock to shareholders. Covetrus immediately merged with Vets First Choice in a Reverse Morris Trust… Read More »