In July, as Lockheed Martin(LMT) announced its acquisition of Sikorsky helicopter from United Technologies(UTX), it also announced it was considering a sale or spinoff of its IT business. A decision had been expected by year end. Last week, the company said that although it was still very likely to divest the division, the decision would be pushed into… Read More »
The WSJ is reporting that Dow Chemical (DOW) and DuPont (DD) are in advanced merger talks to create a chemical behemoth with leading positions across the chemical spectrum including ag, plastics and a host of other markets. Both companies have been shedding non-core and non-performing assets over the past few years, including some via spinoffs and exchange offers.… Read More »
After fighting to push forward with a spinoff of its Alibaba(BABA) stake as Aabaco Holdings since the IRS first indicated its opposition in May, Yahoo(YHOO) and its embattled CEO Marissa Mayer have finally thrown in the towel. After days of intense speculation, the company announced this morning that the Board, “after careful review and consideration of how to… Read More »
Some people just won’t take no for an answer. According to Reuters, Shire (SHPG) is getting ready to unveil a higher bid for recent spinoff Baxalta (BXLT), after its unsolicited $30b offer was rejected earlier this year. At the time of the initial offer, the orphan disease focused company had been independent for about roughly two minutes and argued… Read More »
Less than two months after its successful IPO of 10% of Ferrari(RACE), Fiat Chrysler(FCAU) took a major step forward towards the spinoff of its remaining 80% stake yesterday. At the company’s Extraordinary General Meeting of shareholders, the transaction was approved. It is expected that the company will complete the spinoff in January 2016. The EGM approved a demerger… Read More »
A few short hits to close off the week: The Economist had a short piece looking at some of the challenges faced by both companies following HP’s (HPQ) spinoff of its services business HP Enterprise (HPE). While both companies have scale and more focused operations, the future for each company is murky. The PC business is shrinking and… Read More »
One of the highlights of the ‘Summer of Spin’ was eBay’s (EBAY) spin off of payments processor PayPal (PYPL). Several activists had been pushing hard for the spin, including Carl Icahn, who at one point, engaged in a heated war of words with the company and then CEO John Donahoe. Although he ultimately struck a deal with a… Read More »
General Electric(GE) announced the results of its exchange offer for Synchrony Financial(SYF) common stock this morning. The exchange, which ended last night at midnight, was oversubscribed by 3.2 times, with “2,149,128,195 shares of GE common stock were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn.” The company will “accept 671,366,809 of the tendered shares in exchange for the 705,270,833 shares… Read More »
Last month, we reported speculation that Starwood Hotels(HOT) would be acquired by one of three Chinese hoteliers or Hyatt Hotels(H). An acquisition was indeed in the offing, but by a company unmentioned in those previous reports- Marriott International(MAR). Marriott announced yesterday that it would be acquiring Starwood for $12.2 billion. Not to worry, spinoff fans. Starwood’s spinoff of… Read More »
Earlier this year, the WSJ reported that ATM maker NCR Corp (NCR) was considering its strategic options, including a possible spinoff. A little digging revealed a spinoff to be a low probability choice and that a buyback or dividend seemed more likely to be in the cards as a new ‘shareholder friendly’ activity. Shortly thereafter though, the company… Read More »
A few short hits to kick off the week: Marketfolly posts a copy of Third Point Capital’s Q3 newsletter in which chief Dan Loeb talks about the firm’s position in Baxter International (BAX). Mr. Loeb is a big fan of new CEO Jose ‘Joe’ Almeida which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given that the fund’s board representative helped… Read More »
Last night, GE(GE) set the final ratio for its exchange offer at 1.0505 shares of Synchrony(SYF) common stock for each share of GE tendered. At GE’s closing price on Thursday of $30.16 and Synchrony’s close of $30.79, this represents $32.34 worth of Synchrony stock, or a premium of 7.2%. GE shareholders have until midnight, Monday night, November 16… Read More »
Despite the urging of some investors, McDonald’s (MCD) will not spin off its real estate assets into a REIT. The much awaited decision was revealed by CEO Steve Easterbrook at the company’s investor meeting held earlier this week. The company spent a long time studying tax advantages and analyzing multiple benefits of the move and ultimately concluded that the… Read More »
Mallinckrodt(MNK) began the week trading at $70 per share. Six months ago, it was above $130. Today, after some comments from Andrew Left of Citron Research, it trades at $62.58, having touched as low as $52.01. The drug company was spun off of Covidien in 2013. Covidien, which had spun out of Tyco(TYC), was acquired in 2014 by… Read More »
Despite what appeared to be reasonable improvement in the first quarter since its spinoff from DuPont(DD), The Chemours Company(CC) stock has continued its downward spiral. The company which began when-issued trading at $21 in late June, closed at $6.43 yesterday. As we have discussed previously, the company is burdened with $4 billion in debt, plus unknowable environmental liability.… Read More »