People often focus on the larger, more macro implications of the recent commodity boom. As a result, it’s very easy to forget about the nitty gritty, day to day lives of the people actually working in far flung locations up in Canada or South Dakota (well, there goes our South Dakota reader). Thousands of people descend on these… Read More »
United Online (UNTD) has had a rough time trying to break itself up. Its planned spinoff of well known flower company FTD Companies has been delayed several times and the transaction was pushed off another month as the company was unable to secure the necessary approvals in time. Maybe its having an existential crisis – after all its… Read More »
The list of upcoming spins is now a little shorter. After an internal strategic review, Marchex (MCHX) announced that it was tabling plans to spin off Archeo, its domain name business, to shareholders. After selling off certain Archeo assets earlier this year, the company determined that Archeo’s ‘small financial profile’ didn’t make sense for an independent company given… Read More »
The publishing business is changing and with a new world often comes new owners with fresh ideas. Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos recently purchased The Washington Post and hedge fund titan John Henry snatched up the iconic Boston Globe. Even public companies like News Corp (NWSA) and Time Warner (TWX) are in the process or completed unloading their publishing assets into independent… Read More »
Murphy USA(MUSA) completed its first day of trading yesterday following its spinoff from Murphy Oil(MUR). The business, which is primarily Murphy’s retail gas station network, will be led by R. Andrew Clyde. Former parent Murphy Oil has new leadership as well, with the retiring Steven Cosse being replaced by Roger Jenkins. The spinoff, which was completed after the… Read More »
Murphy Oil (MUR) is currently a member of the S&P 500 and will remain so even after the spinoff of its retail business, Murphy USA. The new company will end up a little further down the chain though and will replace Strayer Education (STRA) in the S&P MidCap 400 index upon completion of the spin. Strayer will be booted… Read More »
Who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks? 107 year old ONEOK (OKE), founded as the Oklahoma Natural Gas Company way back in 1906, recently announced that its board of directors had approved the spinoff of its natural gas distribution business. The new company will be known as ONE Gas and will be ‘the only publicly traded,… Read More »
Murphy Oil’s (MUR) board of directors formally approved the spinoff of its US retail marketing business, Murphy USA Inc, recently. The distribution is expected to be tax free and is set for August 30th to shareholders of record on August 21st. The new company will trade on the NYSE under the ticker ‘MUSA’ and MUR shareholders will receive… Read More »
One step forward, another step back. With a new CEO finally in place, Time Inc’s spinoff seemed to be gaining some momentum. It turned out to be short lived though as Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes announced during the most recent conference call that the spin would be pushed off until next year. The reason? Our top… Read More »
There are few companies in America with as long a history as DuPont (DD). Started as a gunpowder mill in Delaware in 1802, the company has been a fixture on the American business landscape for over two centuries. DuPont was a force behind the creation and growth of General Motors (GM) and invented many of the signature materials… Read More »
Epazz(EPAZ) continues to push the envelope on the bare minimum of substance a spinoff must have. Consider its latest gem of a press release: Epazz a leading provider of cloud based business software solutions, announced today that the Company is moving quickly forward with the Project Human Mobile Power spinoff. Epazz is currently working with a Patent attorney… Read More »
In July 2007, when Rio Tinto(RIO) announced it would be purchasing Alcan for $38.1 billion in the largest mining acquisition ever, new CEO Tom Albanese was ecstatic. His bold move, beating out a $27 billion hostile bid from former Alcan parent Alcoa(AA) proved disastrous. Earlier this year, Albanese was forced to resign after writing down over $25 billion… Read More »
As expected, Straight Path Communications(STRP) began trading today following its spin off from IDT(IDT). We previously described the interesting background of the new company’s CEO, David Jonas(we wonder how many other pulpit Rabbis run public companies). Rabbi Jonas is quite optimistic about the company’s prospects: SPCI’s President & Chief Executive Officer, David Jonas, said, “The spin-off of Straight… Read More »
When we last checked in with Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology in late March, it was days away from an April IPO of 17% of its stock by parent Harvard Bioscience(HBIO). Soon afterwards, HBIO announced the postponement of the IPO, citing market conditions. On May 1, the company abandoned its plan for an IPO and declared it would spin… Read More »
We admit that our knowledge of Australia is limited beyond knowing that it has immense strategic value in RISK. Given that, it’s not surprising that we had never heard of Amcor(AMC.AX,AMCRY), which turns out to be the worlds largest packaging company with a market capitalization exceeding $11 Billion. Until we heard today that it plans to spin off… Read More »