A spinoff of a Dow Jones Industrial Average component is not an everyday occurrence. GE(GE), a former Dow component, recently spun off its transportation business into Wabtec(WAB), but the struggling company was removed from the Dow last June. United Technologies(UTX) plans to split in three next year. Even rarer, in this case, the child will join the Dow,… Read More »
The boom in spinoff activity over the past few years has been aided greatly by the boom in activist investing. In this edition of Odds & Ends we check in on some activists. Other hedge funds may be shuttering, but it seems this segment remains hot! When something works, the financial industry knows how to milk it, but… Read More »
It’s that time of year again where thanks to sites like Market Folly we mere mortals get to enjoy the vast wisdom contained in hedge fund year end letters. David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital is always a good one to read although this past year was a challenging one for the value investor. The fund returned <2% in 2017… Read More »
After a long gestational period, MetLife (MET) finally completed the spinoff of its life insurance & annuity business, Brighthouse Financial (BHF) this week. MetLife shareholders as of July 19th should have received 1 share of BHF for every 11 MET shares owned. Brighthouse trades on the NASDAQ and was also added to the S&P 500 Index, replacing auto dealer… Read More »
2016 was a busy year for MetLife (MET). Outside of their normal operations, the mammoth insurance company won a huge lawsuit versus the US Government avoiding the dreaded ‘systemically important’ designation. They fired Snoopy and in related news to this site, the company announced the spinoff of part of its retail operations into a standalone entity. The new company… Read More »