Month: February 2015

Starwood CEO Frits van Paasschen Is Out, One Week After Company Announces Spin

Last week, Starwood Hotels(HOT) announced it would be spinning off its timeshare business. One week later, CEO Frits van Paasschen “resigned by mutual agreement with the Board of Directors as President, Chief Executive Officer and a Director.” The company has appointed director Adam Aron as interim CEO and has stated that they wanted to see more growth than… Read More »

Starwood Thinks It’s Time To Say Goodbye To Its Timeshare Business

While releasing strong Q4 results, Starwood Hotels (HOT) also announced plans to spinoff its timeshare business, Starwood Vacation Ownership. The timeshare unit reported revenues of $640m in 2014, representing a little over 10% of the overall company’s total. According to the press release, the company ‘has successfully sold more than $6 billion of vacation ownership intervals to over… Read More »

For NiSource, Columbia Spinoff Is In The Pipeline

For nearly four million customers in seven states NiSource (NI) is a utility providing gas and electricity. At the same time, the company operates a large non-regulated gas pipeline, storage and midstream business. In September, the company announced plans to spin off this business as the Columbia Pipeline Group. The company expects that the spinoff will be completed… Read More »

Vista Outdoor Set To Join S&P Midcap 400

Alliance Techsystems (ATK) is set to complete its merger with Orbital Sciences (ORB) today and just prior to the combination, the company will spinoff its outdoor sports segment, Vista Outdoors, in a tax free transaction. The new company will trade on the NYSE under the ticker ‘VSTO’ and ATK shareholders will receive 2 share of VSTO for every… Read More »

Mandelblatt’s Soroban Capital Unveils Big Stake In California Resources Corporation

Last November, Occidental Petroleum (OXY) spun off its California oil & gas holdings into a standalone company, the California Resources Corporation (CRC). Lets just say the new entity faced a lot of headwinds, but one thing few predicted was the coming plunge in oil prices. As a result, CRC has had a rough go of it on its own… Read More »

It’s Not Rocket Science! ATK And Orbital Shareholders Approve Merger Setting Stage For Vista Outdoor Spinoff

During a pair of special meetings, shareholders at both Alliance Techsystems (ATK) and Orbital Sciences (ORB) overwhelmingly approved their proposed merger. Nearly 100% of votes cast were in favor and hey, why should a rocket explosion spoil a good deal? Orbital shareholders will receive 0.449 shares of ATK common stock for each ORB share owned, effectively giving Orbital shareholders… Read More »

Yahoo’s Small Business Unit Will Be Part Of Alibaba Spinoff

After months of sustained pressure, Yahoo (YHOO) finally unveiled plans to spinoff its stake in Alibaba (BABA) last week during its earnings call. A spinoff was chosen for its tax efficiency and in order to accomplish that goal, the company said that a small operating unit would need to be included as part of the transaction. At the time,… Read More »

Manitowoc Yields To Activist Pressure And Will Spin Off Foodservice Business

Less than seven years after turning itself into a more diversified conglomerate with the purchase of Enodis, Manitowoc (MTW) reversed course and announced that it would separate its foodservice business from its crane equipment unit. The move comes after severe pressure from several activist investors, beginning with Relational Investors last summer and more recently from Carl Icahn who seemed… Read More »