After undergoing a strategic review and failing to find a buyer, Loral Space & Communication (LORL) announced that it is committed to spinning off its Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) segment. SS/L designs, manufactures and integrates satellites and space systems for a wide variety of commercial and government customers. The unit appears to be growing rather nicely over the past… Read More »
Less than a year after being spun out of the Marathon Oil Corporation (MRO), the Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC) is pondering a spin of its own. Talk about moving quickly. Egged on by activist investor Jana Partners (who is also ‘prodding’ McGraw-Hill [MHP]), the company is considering setting up an master limited partnership (MLP) for its pipeline business… Read More »
Rouse Properties(RSE) had announced it intended to do a rights offering after its spinoff from General Growth Properties(GGP) was complete. This afternoon, Rouse announced that the offering will be set for the close of business on February 13. Each Right will allow the holder to purchase 0.375094056 shares of stock at a price per share of $15, as… Read More »
Viking Global Investors filed a 13G yesterday, declaring a 6% passive stake in TripAdvisor(TRIP). It appears that the entire stake was purchased quite recently, as former TripAdvisor parent Expedia(EXPE) does not appear in the firm’s most recent 13F-HR, filed on November 14. As far as we can tell, Viking has never filed a 13D to take an active… Read More »
McGraw-Hill(MHP) confirmed that it continues to move forward with a spinoff of its Education business, calling it ‘Plan A’, even while it engages in talks with potential buyers for the business. It is believed that the division is worth more than $2.5 billion. On today’s earnings conference call, the company indicated that the spinoff continued to be on… Read More »
S&P announced that, as of the close of trading on February 6, Post Holdings(POST) will join its former parent, Ralcorp(RAH) in the S&P MidCap 400 Index. Post will replace Comstock Resources(CRK) which will be moving to the smallcap index. Post will be distributed to shareholders of Ralcorp at the close of trading on February 3. Disclosure: The author… Read More »
M&A gets a lot of attention, but many have questioned whether or not it delivers the expected returns to shareholders. Often this is a result of paying too much. While the data on spinoffs is pretty favorable (we might be a bit biased here), the transaction can have some consequences. For example, if the parent company doesn’t retain… Read More »
Post Cereals(POST) began trading today on a when issued basis. Currently, it’s settled in around $26.50 with a range of $22.75 to $27.50. But what is it actually worth? One share of Post stock will be distributed on February 3 to for every 2 shares owned of Ralcorp(RAH) as of January 30, so those who buy Ralcorp today… Read More »
‘Everyone else is doing it’. Unfortunately, that line never worked for me as a child [it was always met with something like ‘if everyone else was jumping off a bridge…’ or ‘well, you are part of this family’], but apparently it is the new motto for integrated energy companies. Many players in the space appear to be operating… Read More »
Beam, Inc.(BEAM), the former Fortune Brands after its spinoff of Fortune Brands Home & Security(FBHS) in October, has announced that it will raise its dividend 8%, from an annual rate of $0.76 to $0.82. The company also declared the next quarterly dividend of 20.5 cents per share, which will be payable on March 1, 2012 to shareholders of… Read More »
We are entering the final months of the Sara Lee(SLE) conglomerate. The empire, which once included Coach(COH) handbags and Hanes(HBI) underwear, is aiming spin off its Coffee & Tea business(CoffeeCo) in April or May, though no final date has been set. As the date finally approaches(this was first announced a year ago), the company is taking steps to… Read More »
Research In Motion(RIMM) has long been viewed as a company in freefall. Market share has been in decline, with both iPhone and Android showing impressive gains. Among others, RBC’s Mike Abramsky suggested last summer that the company would be more successful splitting into a hardware company and a network operations company. The network part of the business could… Read More »
The Mercury News interviewed Marc Baker, CEO of Orchard Supply Hardware(OSH), which was recently spun off from Sears Holdings(SHLD). There’s nothing really new here, but it’s always interesting to see how a CEO views and spins his company. Some highlights: Q Where does Orchard fall in terms of the hardware store landscape? A We think of ourselves as… Read More »
It was way back in June 2010, when Sunoco(SUN) first announced its intention to spin SunCoke(SXC) into a separate company. One year later, in July 2011, the company conducted an IPO of SunCoke shares. This week the company completed the process on January 17 by distributing the 80.9% of SunCoke shares it owned to shareholders at a rate… Read More »
While picking out a name for a newborn child is fun and exciting, it is also a really stressful decision. Everyone seems to have an opinion and it really will affect the child for the rest of his or her life (yes, I am talking about you Apple, Blue and Brooklyn). So I am sure it must challenging… Read More »