This week’s roundup is about those almost-spinoffs: deals that are still worth watching, even if the original plan has changed.
Kraft Heinz Puts The Breakup Back In The Pantry
Kraft Heinz has paused its planned breakup, which may be the most sensible thing it has done in this whole process. When we wrote about the Kraft Heinz spinoff announcement, Warren Buffett’s objection was the hard-to-ignore one: taking the company apart would not fix the underlying business. New CEO Steve Cahillane now seems to be making the same basic bet from inside the building. Reuters reported that Kraft Heinz has halted separation work, with no end date for the pause, and expects to save roughly $300 million in 2026 as it redirects attention toward growth, innovation, marketing, and R&D. That is less exciting than a two-company breakup, but probably more useful. There is only so much financial engineering can do for Lunchables, Oscar Mayer, and Maxwell House. Reuters.
Teleflex Trades A Spinoff For A Sale
Teleflex is no longer planning to spin off its Urology, Acute Care, and OEM businesses. Instead, it is selling them for a combined $2.03 billion. That is a clean reversal from the plan we covered in Teleflex Spinoff Of Urology, Acute Care and OEM Businesses Expected in Mid-2026. The company will sell Acute Care and Interventional Urology to Intersurgical and the OEM business to Montagu and Kohlberg. The logic is easy enough to understand: selling the assets gives Teleflex cash, simplifies the company, and avoids sending shareholders a small public medical-device grab bag with a generic name and a lot to prove. The board also authorized a new $1 billion repurchase program, which is a very different capital-return story than “please welcome NewCo.” Teleflex release.
McKesson’s Medical-Surgical Separation Takes The Apollo Route
McKesson has not killed its Medical-Surgical Solutions separation, but the path is now more complicated than a plain-vanilla spinoff. When we wrote about McKesson readying the Medical-Surgical Solutions business for separation, the appeal was straightforward: separate a lower-priority distribution business and let McKesson focus on pharmaceutical distribution and specialty care. The latest step is a $1.25 billion Apollo investment for an approximately 13% minority stake in MMS, valuing the business at about $13 billion. McKesson says the deal is part of preparing MMS for a planned IPO. That may be the right route, but it is not the clean spinoff version. Shareholders now have to watch an IPO path, private-equity involvement, retained control, and eventual separation timing. The scrubbed scrubs are still leaving the hospital; they are just stopping at Apollo’s house first. McKesson release.
MiniMed Is Public, But Medtronic Still Owns Most Of It
MiniMed has completed the IPO step, but the Medtronic separation is not finished. In our original piece, A Sweet Deal With A Bittersweet Twist, we described the diabetes business separation as an IPO followed by a later split-off or distribution. The first part is done: MiniMed now trades on Nasdaq under MMED. But Medtronic still owns roughly 90% of the company after the offering, so this remains a partially separated business with a second transaction still to come. MMED is public, but it is not yet fully free. It remains to be seen how Medtronic gets the rest of the stake out to shareholders, and at what price the market wants to own the diabetes business once the parent overhang is gone. MassDevice.
The Lesson: The Spinoff Announcement Is Not The Transaction
These updates are a useful reminder that a spinoff announcement is only the first draft. Kraft Heinz paused. Teleflex sold the pieces. McKesson brought in Apollo and moved toward an IPO. Medtronic got MiniMed public but still owns most of it.
None of that makes the original announcements meaningless. It just means investors have to keep following the transaction after the headline. The interesting part is often not “Company X plans to separate Business Y.” It is what actually happens when management meets taxes, debt, buyers, public-market appetite, and the unglamorous question of whether the business is better off on its own.