With his public battle over Dell finished, Carl Ichan didn’t take too long in drumming up a new target. The famous corporate raider is now pushing eBay (EBAY) to spin off its online transaction business, PayPal, and submitted this idea for a non-binding vote at an upcoming shareholder meeting. Along with a spinoff, Mr. Icahn is also seeking… Read More »
While Mr. Malone was busy making other news, Liberty Global (LBTYA) revealed in a filing related to a separate transaction that it was considering a spinoff of its Latin American businesses. A John Malone company thinking about a spinoff? In the words of Capt. Louis Renault ‘Im shocked, shocked’. From the 8-K filing: Liberty Global is disclosing in the offering memorandum… Read More »
Breakups and spinoff ideas are forming everywhere. The WSJ had an article this past weekend discussing a possible spinoff of Johnson Controls’ (JCI) seating business. JCI operates three different business segments – building efficiency, auto supply and power supplies (batteries) – with auto supply, which includes seating, being the largest segment in terms of revenue. The company has a strong… Read More »
With new regulations, capital requirements, lawsuits and scandals popping up, it is no surprise that the big banks have been doing some soul searching. ‘Derisking’ has become in vogue (or mandatory) and in response units have been shed and trading desks cut. Mediobanca analyst Chris Wheeler thinks UBS (UBS) might have something much bigger in the works though… Read More »
Suntory Holdings will acquire Beam Inc (BEAM) for ~$13.6b in cash or $83.50 per share, representing a 25% premium to Friday’s close. Beam, owner of Jim Beam, Makers Mark, Canadian Club and more, is the largest US based spirits maker and the combination with Suntory will create the third largest spirits player in the world. The deal has… Read More »
Agilent Technologies (A) unveiled the name of its upcoming electronic measurement spinoff company as Keysight Technologies. The name is actually a combination of the words ‘key’ and ‘insight’ although dropping the ‘in’ from insight does seem to make it lose meaning. So why those two specific words? Ahhh because the new company will have the ‘ability to see… Read More »
After obtaining the necessary approvals from numerous regulatory bodies, including most recently the Kansas Commission, ONEOK’s (OKE) board of directors officially approved the spinoff of its natural gas distribution business, One Gas. The new company will be one of the largest natural gas utilities in the US and consist of the Kansas Gas Service, Oklahoma Natural Gas Company and Texas Gas Service.… Read More »
After a few stops in Australia, the international spinoff (or demerger as the rest of the world calls them) tour continues in Europe with Metso’s (OTC:MXCYY) recent separation of its pulp, paper and power business. The demerger was registered on December 31st and shares in the new company, Valmet Corporation (HLSE:VALMT), began trading on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki… Read More »
Continuing with the Australian theme from yesterday, wooden pallet maker Brambles (ASX:BXB) recently completed the demerger of its information management and document storage business, Recall Holdings (ASX:REC). I bet that if you work for a large company and look around the office then you will see a bunch of ‘Recall’ boxes lying around. Shareholders overwhelmingly approved of the… Read More »
WPX Energy (WPX) announced that its CEO & President, Ralph Hill, would be stepping down at the end of the year and that a new committee was being formed to find his replacement. No reason was reported in the press release. Mr. Hill had been with WPX and its parent company Williams (WMB) for over 30 years and… Read More »
Amcor’s (ASX:AMC) shareholders overwhelmingly approved the demerger of Orora (ASX:ORA), its Australasia and Packaging Distribution business, at a shareholder meeting last week with over 99% of the votes cast in favor. Shareholders will end up owning two distinct packaging companies with different focuses and end markets. While the board considered numerous options for the business, in the end they… Read More »
A familiar name to readers of this site was leading the pack of top gainers for a bit last Thursday and the reason was a bit surprising. Exelis (XLS), a defense contractor freshly spun out of ITT (ITT), announced that it would pursue a spinoff of its own by separating its military and government services business into a standalone unit.… Read More »
Harvard Bioscience (HBIO) recently completed the spinoff of its regenerative medicine device subsidiary, Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technologies (HART). As we previously noted, the parent’s CEO and other top management moved to the spinco, creating a leadership void. The posts have since been filled and the company recently announced the details of some further ‘inducement grants’ for its new management team. Here… Read More »
Ingersoll-Rand (IR) completed the spinoff of its commercial and residential security business, Allegion (ALLE). The new company started trading today on the NYSE and IR shareholders should have received 1 share of ALLE for every 3 shares of IR owned. The new company is expected to have revenues of over $2b and EBITDA of over $400m. For much… Read More »
If Kimberly-Clark (KMB) ever misses its health care division in the midst of its breakup, it will still have lots of Kleenex to cry into. The manufacturer of Huggies diapers announced last week that it planned to spin off its health care division to shareholders. Like many of the companies we discuss, Kimberly-Clark is something of a serial… Read More »