These pages have frequently highlighted the many victories notched by activists pushing for breakups. We are big, big fans of those guys. Of course, like all good battles, the other side doesn’t just sit back and wait to be ambushed. No, new tactics are drawn up, plans laid and in this case that means talking to lawyers. About… Read More »
The long, drawn out Osram (MU:OSR) saga finally came to a close a few weeks ago when ~80% of the shares in the lighting company were officially listed on July 8th. Siemens (SI) shareholders received one share of Osram for every 10 shares of Siemens owned. The shares are currently trading on foreign exchanges as there doesn’t appear to… 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 »
Just a day after Tribune (TRBAA) announced that it would be separating its publishing assets into a new company, speculation has already started about who will be the next media company to follow the breakup trend. With News Corp’s (NWSA) spinoff completed and Time Warner’s (TWX) on track, the WSJ tossed out Gannett’s (GCI) name as a possible… Read More »
Months after caving into demands from activist investor Nelson Peltz to break itself up, Ingersoll-Rand (IR) has started releasing details on its commercial & residential security spinoff. The new company will be named Allegion and is expected to trade on the NYSE under the ticker ‘ALLE’. According to the press release, the name was chosen because it represents ‘the… 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 »
No, Beyonce isn’t pregnant, but there is a new Knowles, well…a Knowles Corporation coming next year following Dover Corporation’s (DOV) announced spin off of its communications technologies business. The new company is ‘expected to be an industry leader’ in acoustic components (ex. MEMs microphones, speakers, receivers and transducers) and communication infrastructure components. According to a company presentation (the one dated May 23rd), on… 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 »
A few more milestones have been crossed on News Corp’s (NWSA) path to spinning off its publishing business. This past week, the company received shareholder approval in order to change its certificate of incorporation. The move was necessary in order to facilitate the spinoff of its publishing business, commonly referred to as the new News Corp. A few weeks prior 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 »
We often mention how long the spinoff process can take. There are a lot of reasons for that including paperwork, but basically it isn’t easy to carve out a brand new entity. There is a lot of internal work and planning that needs to get done during that period to ensure a smooth transition. Nothing sexy and the… Read More »