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 »
Late last year Varian Medical Systems (VAR) pushed back the timing of its Varex Imaging spinoff to January 2017. Now the company’s board of directors is sticking with that target by officially approving the separation of the imaging business and setting January 28th as the distribution date. Varian shareholders as of January 20th should receive 0.4 shares of Varex for every 1… 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 »
Biogen(BIIB) enters the final days before its spinoff of Bioverativ(BIVV), its global hemophilia business, as the new company begins when issued trading under the ticker BIVV. After the close of business on February 1, Biogen shareholders as of January 17 will receive one share of Bioverativ for every two shares they own. The distribution is expected to be… Read More »
Someone sure was busy during the Holidays. On the very first trading day of the new year, Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC) announced a number of strategic updates, most of them suggested (and naturally approved) by activist fund Elliott Management. While most of the news was related to its ownership of MPLX (MPLX and worthy of its own post), there was… 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 »
Are you a business journalist on deadline with no idea what to write about? An editor with some space to fill? There are some stories that will work every time. How about this? Propose a spinoff that will never happen, like Amazon(AMZN) spinning off its web services business. Then, tell us why it won’t happen. Now, punch out,… 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 »
Hilton (HLT) completed the spinoff of a lodging REIT, Park Hotels & Resorts (PK), and of its timeshare business, Hilton Grand Vacations (HGV), earlier this week. The new companies begin trading the ‘regular way’ yesterday and shareholders should have received 1 HGV share for every 10 HLT shares owned and 1 PK share for every 5 HLT shares… Read More »
Nearly three years after its April 2014 spinoff from Sears Holdings(SHLD), Lands’ End(LE) is fairing only marginally better than its former parent, which is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Lands End, which just after its spinoff had a market capitalization of $900 million, is worth just $485 million today. The company has nearly $500 million in long… Read More »
A decade after a divorce, a couple strongly considers getting back together, only to call it off. The plot of It’s Complicated? No, the latest in the saga of Viacom(VIA) and CBS(CBS). At the very end of 2005, Viacom and CBS split into two independent companies. Late this summer, as Shari Redstone cemented her control over her father… Read More »
Varian Medical Systems (VAR) is currently in the process of spinning off its imaging component business, Varex Imaging. As part of the transaction, Varex will now send Varian a $200m parting ‘gift‘ (or dividend) to be funded by new borrowings. According to Varian’s CEO Dow Wilson, ‘the Imaging Components business has gained momentum since last May when we… Read More »
There is just something exciting about a three-way split. It’s just such a radical transformation and in some ways it’s hard to believe that a company like hotelier Hilton Worldwide (HLT) could pull it off. ITT sure, but Hilton? January 3rd is the day though when Hilton will officially spin off a) Hilton Grand Vacations, its timeshare business… Read More »
The year is coming to an end and it’s really cold outside. Warm up and start your weekend with a few spinoff related links: The always excellent Value and Opportunity took a close look at the recent spinoff of Italian gas distributor Italgas (IG.MI) from SNAM spa (SNMRF). In his opinion, although there is real risk in the name,… Read More »