Author Archives: The Limey
In American Psycho, Christian Bale’s character Patrick Bateman famously struggles to get a table at New York restaurant Dorsia. Hopefully brokers will be more accommodating to investors looking to get their hands on stock in Idorsia, which is to be spun out of Actelion (ALIOY) in the second quarter of 2017. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) announced a deal… Read More »
AkzoNobel (AKZOY), the Dutch chemicals company, has today announced a review of strategic options for its Speciality Chemicals business. The review comes in response to an unsolicited takeover approach from US rival PPG (PPG) to acquire AZKOY at €83 per share (€54 in cash and 0.3 PPG shares), representing a 29% premium to yesterday’s close. PPG has yet… Read More »
Swedish oil company Lundin Petroleum (LUPEY) has today announced its intention to spin off all of its international operations and focus solely on Norway. Lundin shareholders will receive 1 share in a new entity called International Petroleum Corp (IPC) for every 3 shares currently owned. IPC will be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker IPCO… Read More »
Toshiba Corp. (TOSYY) has today outlined more details of the plan to sell off part of its memory chip business, in an effort to raise funds ahead of a multi-billion dollar write down of its US nuclear business. CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa said at a news conference on Friday: “We had been thinking of splitting off semiconductors to beef… Read More »
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis (NVS) is considering a spin off Alcon, its surgical equipment and contact lens business. While most of its peers are busy acquiring each other, Novartis is taking a more inward-focused approach also announcing today a $5 billion share buyback. Reporting its 2016 earnings, Novartis said: “Novartis is considering options for the Alcon Division. The… Read More »
Toshiba Corp. (TOSYY) has today acknowledged that recent speculation about a potential sale of its flash memory business was bang on the money. The Nikkei newspaper reported earlier this week that the Japanese conglomerate may sell a 20 percent stake in the chip operations, raising as much as 300 billion yen ($2.7 billion). Memory is Toshiba’s most profitable… Read More »
E.ON(EONGY), German’s largest utility, is facing calls from activist investor Knight Vinke to spin out its power distribution business. This comes just months after the €4 billion demerger of its conventional power generation and commodity trading units into Uniper(UN01.DE). Knight Vinke, a European activist fund best known for its campaigns against UBS and Darty, was supportive of the… Read More »
Atlas Copco(ATCO-A.ST), the largest industrial corporation in Sweden by market value, today announced an intention to split into two listed companies, separating its industrial and mining operations. The Company intends to put the proposal to shareholders at its 2018 Annual General Meeting(AGM). From this morning’s press release: “NewCo will focus on mining/civil engineering customers and include the existing… Read More »
We want to introduce a new author to the site. The Limey is a sell side equity analyst based in London and is also (more importantly) a long time reader of this site. The Limey will look at spinoff situations in Europe and elsewhere. Xerox (XRX) completed the spinoff of its business process outsourcing (BPO) division Conduent (CNDT)… Read More »