Congress is working hard trying to pass a comprehensive spending bill and a tax package extending numerous tax breaks. According to the WSJ, buried in these proposals is a bid to end companies’ ability to spinoff property into REITs: The bill from Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, would prevent… Read More »
A few short hits to close off the week: The Economist had a short piece looking at some of the challenges faced by both companies following HP’s (HPQ) spinoff of its services business HP Enterprise (HPE). While both companies have scale and more focused operations, the future for each company is murky. The PC business is shrinking and… Read More »
Despite the urging of some investors, McDonald’s (MCD) will not spin off its real estate assets into a REIT. The much awaited decision was revealed by CEO Steve Easterbrook at the company’s investor meeting held earlier this week. The company spent a long time studying tax advantages and analyzing multiple benefits of the move and ultimately concluded that the… Read More »
About two months ago we noted that McDonald’s(MCD) was under pressure to spin off its real estate holdings into a REIT. According to a recent interview with board member Miles White, the company has been evaluating what to do with its real estate for some time and a decision will be made shortly, possibly as soon as November’s Investor… Read More »
With Darden (DRI) announcing a real estate spinoff, analysts and investors are flocking to find other targets which could benefit from monetizing real estate assets through a REIT conversion. One reason REITs are attractive is that they tend to trade at higher multiples than other sectors so in theory, a separation ‘unlocks’ value by creating a higher sum… Read More »
Appearing on Fast Money this evening, Doug Kass predicted that another hedge fund manager would join Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital by taking a big stake in Procter & Gamble(PG), and that together they would force the company to split into two or three pieces. Kass said the stock price would increase $7-$10on such an announcement. With… 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 »