General Electric(GE) is the prototypical conglomerate. It is welll known for its turbines, its locomotives, its jet engines, and its finance division. Chastened by the financial crisis which GE entered as a finance company with some industrial assets attached, CEO Jeff Immelt has been on a multiyear mission to shift the company’s focus back to its industrial operations.… Read More »
Noble Corporation (NE) is going deep after announcing plans to spin off a business holding most of its standard specification drilling units. The new company’s assets will include ‘five drillships, three semisubmersibles, 34 jackups, two submersibles, and one FPSO’ and also be responsible for the Hibernia platform operations. Noble will continue to own and operate its high-specification assets, ~35 rigs… Read More »
DE Master Blenders 1753’s (DE.AS or DEMBF) listing on the NYSE Euronext will be terminated on Tuesday, October 29th. To be fair, this is a mere formality as the stock hasn’t really traded much in the months following the takeover announcement by privately held Joh A Benckiser. While it’s been awhile since the board approved buyout offer rolled in, the ensuing… Read More »
In late September, National Oilwell Varco (NOV) announced that it would spin off its distribution business, a unit which provides MRO supplies to the energy and industrial markets, into a standalone entity. According to CEO & Chairman Pete Miller, after a series of acquisitions from Schlumberger (SLB) last year, the business is now large enough (both in size… Read More »
Amidst talk of defense budget cuts and sequesters, Northrop Grumman (NOC) spun off of its naval shipbuilding unit Huntington Ingalls (HII). Despite the doom and gloom setting for the defense industry, the stock has appreciated quite nicely since its March 2011 debut, up close to 90%. The company has recently faced cost overruns while building the newest aircraft… Read More »
The death knell appears to be ringing for Telecom Italia’s (TI) fixed line spinoff. According to this Bloomberg piece, the company plans to ask its board of directors to withdraw its approval for the spin, which would put an end to a process which has been going on for over a year. That is a loooong time and… Read More »
The spinoff world is always changing and it takes a lot of effort to stay abreast of the news. As a result, it has been some time since we have checked in on some names which appear to have been buried at the bottom of the ‘Upcoming Spinoffs’ list. So here is our attempt at a little ‘spring cleaning’:… Read More »
Big shakeup at Demand Media (DMD) as CEO and Chairman Richard Rosenblatt resigned earlier this week. While the company did not provide any reason for the move, this Variety piece quotes two Stifel analysts saying that “the change is not entirely surprising given the pressure from Google’s algo(rithm) changes on the content business, the overall strategic drift in the company… Read More »
Harvard Bioscience Inc’s (HBIO) board of directors approved the spinoff of its regenerative medicine device subsidiary, Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology. The spin is set to take place on November 1st with HBIO shareholders receiving 1 share of the new company for every 4 shares of HBIO owned. The new company will trade under the ticker ‘HART’ and a when… Read More »
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 »