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 »
For years, Disney (DIS) shares were propelled upwards by consistently better results at its media network unit including ABC and ESPN. As ‘Event TV’ became live TV’s stand against streaming and recording options, sports became especially lucrative due to the high fees they were able to charge. Of course, things change. Costs went up, NFL & ABC ratings… Read More »
Serial spinner IDT(IDT) has set the date for its spinoff of Zedge(ZDGE). IDT shareholders as of May 26 at 5PM will receive one share of Zedge for every three IDT shares that they own. The spinoff will be effective at 11:59PM on June 1. The company’s most recent form 10 can be found here. We recently had the… Read More »
One of the highlights of the ‘Summer of Spin’ was eBay’s (EBAY) spin off of payments processor PayPal (PYPL). Several activists had been pushing hard for the spin, including Carl Icahn, who at one point, engaged in a heated war of words with the company and then CEO John Donahoe. Although he ultimately struck a deal with a… Read More »
For most Americans months away from their 80th birthday, life has long since settled into a post-retirement routine. For Carl Icahn, who will turn 80 in February, he’s just getting started, going after larger targets than ever. Last week, Icahn announced he was forming a Super PAC with $150 million of his own money to promote legislation to… Read More »
One the most anticipated spinoffs during the Summer of Spin was eBay’s (EBAY) spinoff of PayPal (PYPL). Both activists (Carl Icahn) and tech kings (Elon Musk) urged the company to make the move, but it didn’t help the initial performance as the stock took a slight dive in its first few days of trading. A few days of… Read More »
Given its ubiquitous products and tremendous success, it isn’t surprising that everyone seems to have an opinion about Apple (AAPL). There are haters and fanboys and those in between, but all seem to get emotional when discussing the company’s products. Even the stock brings about heated conversations. One area of the company that has gotten a lot of… Read More »
Well that was quick. In what looks to be the briefest stint in modern history (maybe even of all time?), Kraft Food’s (KFT) days as a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average are coming to an end. A mere four years after usurping AIG’s (AIG) spot in the index, the food conglomerate will be replaced by the… Read More »
Image via Wikipedia Just weeks after its debut, Motorola Mobility(MMI) warned that sales were slowing in the face of Verizon’s iPhone introduction. Despite reporting a profit and beating analyst estimates by $.01, the stock traded down sharply as the company projected a loss for the current quarter. Analysts had, on average expected earnings of $.01 for the current… Read More »