Never heard of SunEdison(SUNE)? Perhaps you know it better by its old name, MEMC Electronic Materials. The name was only the first thing to change in the company’s ongoing evolution. In August, the company announced plans to spin off its semiconductor business, which had been its initial core business. The company plans to conduct an IPO for a… Read More »
Like many companies with a focus on natural gas, Encana(ECA) has struggled with the glut of production causing sustained low prices. To some extent, the company has successfully shifted production to oil and natural gas liquids which have had far better economics over the past few years. There is still more that the company needs to do, however,… Read More »
We recently highlighted a piece from DomainNameWire.com speculating that Demand Media’s (DMD) upcoming domain registration spinoff would be named Rightside. It turns out their sleuthing was on the money, as the company formally announced the new name as Rightside last week. The ‘Rightside’ in this case represents ‘everything to the right of the dot – and beyond.’ Clever, but was… Read More »
At his last earnings call in August, Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes pushed back the timing of the company’s spinoff of Time, Inc. Three months later, another earnings call, and another delay. What had once been planned for completion this year is now projected to occur in the second quarter of 2014. Without elaborating on the reasons… Read More »
Newcastle Investment Corp(NCT), which in May spun off a residential REIT, the creatively named New Residential Investment Corp(NRZ), has announced plans to spin off its media business to shareholders. Newcastle is a bit of a strange beast. It is structured as a REIT and controlled by Fortress Investment Group (FIG). The transaction itself is strange as well. Newcastle… Read More »
Last Friday, a spinoff we’ve written about several times became a reality. Harvard Biosciences (HBIO) spun off Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technologies(HART) to shareholders. HBIO shareholders received one share of HART for every four shares of HBIO owned. With management going to the spin off, recently appointed HBIO CEO Jeffery A. Duchemin received the additional titles of President and… Read More »
Some things go great together. Peanut butter and jelly. Ernie and Bert. Song and Dance. Others go less well together. Title insurance and restaurants. Over at the Inelegant Investor, we shared our surprise at this bewildering combination back in August 2012. Now, this strategy has generally worked well for Fidelity National Financial(FNF), but it seems that Corvex shares… Read More »
Amcor Limited (AMCRY) recently held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) and not surprisingly there was a lot of talk about the planned demerger of its Australasia Packaging and Distribution business, which will be named Orora. In fact, both company Chairman Chris Roberts and Managing Director Ken MacKenzie spent a good chunk of their remarks extolling the virtues of the spin and gushing… Read More »
It was, some thought, a mismatch from the beginning. When Sears(SHLD) purchased Lands’ End for $1.9 billion in 2002, the New York Times spoke of a union of “pants and power drills”. The hope of then-CEO Alan Lacy that Lands’ End would revive Sears’ struggling apparel business was never realized. By the time Kmart purchased Sears in late… Read More »
Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft (MSFT), continues to own a $2 billion stake in the company. Recently, Paul Ghaffari, the manager of Vulcan Capital, Allen’s family office, called for the company’s new CEO to spin off the consumer unit. Vulcan Capital, the family investment office of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, believes the new CEO should explore a spinoff of… Read More »
If you owned United Online(UNTD) prior to Friday and are trying to figure out what happened to your portfolio, better get a scorecard. The security underwent a series of changes Friday as the company completed its spin off of FTD Companies(FTD). For every five shares of United owned, shareholders received one share of FTD. Following the spinoff, United… Read More »
After shaking up its leadership earlier this year, Occidental Petroleum (OXY) is undergoing a strategic review to ‘streamline and focus’ its operations. The first steps of that process authorized by its board include: Pursue the sale of a minority interest in the Middle East/North Africa operations in a financially efficient manner. Pursue strategic alternatives for select Midcontinent assets,… Read More »
In the course of our busy lives, we sometimes never get around to writing about certain spins, even those which we are aware of and find interesting. Penn National Gaming’s (PENN) spin of Gaming & Leisure Properties (GLPI) is one such case. A search of our site revealed one scant mention when talking about IRS treatment of REITs,… Read More »
Earlier this summer, Weyerhauser (WY) announced that it was exploring ‘strategic alternatives’ for Weyerhauser Real Estate Company (WRECO), its homebuilder unit. Those options included including ‘continuing to hold and operate WRECO, or a merger, sale or spin-off of the business.’ The unit ranks in the Top 20 homebuilders and sold 1,099 homes in H1 2013. The exploration of strategic… Read More »
Though it is not expected to come up for a shareholder vote until Q2 2014, Noble Corporation(NE) is making progress with its plan to spin off its non-deepwater assets. Noble announced last week that it had received a private letter ruling from the Internal Revenue Service relating the the expected tax-free status of the proposed transaction. Though this… Read More »