Loral Space & Communications (LORL) had long talked about spinning off its Space Systems/Loral (SSL) unit to shareholders, but instead sold the division to MacDonald, Dettwiler & Associates (TSX:MDA) for $875m. The company will also receive over $130m of dividends from SS/L as part of the transaction. As we noted in our earlier article (linked to above), the spin had faced a few hurdles so a sale to a related company certainly made a lot of sense.
Another potential spin which was sold off instead earlier this year was ThyssenKrupp’s (TKA.DE) stainless steel division, Inoxum. The German conglomerate underwent a significant restructuring and the separation of its stainless unit was expected to be a part of it. A spinoff seemed to make sense after Arcelor Mittal (MT) had unloaded its stainless unit, Aperam (APEMY), via spinoff. Alas, it was not to be. The company chose to sell the unit to Finnish competitor Outokumpu in a deal which valued the Inoxum at about $3.5b (or 2.7b Euro – at that time). ThyssenKrupp received a 1b Euro payment and a 29.9% stake in the newly formed company, which became the largest European stainless player.
As a result, both of these names have been removed from our ‘Upcoming Spinoff’ table. We do try our best to stay on top of the news, but occasionally things can fall through the cracks or we are just overwhelmed in the other parts of our lives. Please feel free to drop us a line if you feel like we are missing something.
Disclosure: Author holds no position in any stock mentioned.