Wall Street loves spinoffs, but these transactions are hardly simple affairs to execute. There is a reason most of them take more than 9 months to consummate. After pushing off the expected completion date of Ingevity’s spinoff again, it seems WestRock (WRK) is learning that fact the hard way. The specialty chemical spinoff is now expected to be… Read More »
Some activist funds like to work behind the scenes and then there are the others which seem to be in the news almost every day. A day after making waves at Yahoo (YHOO), Jeffrey Smith’s Starboard Value fund was back in the news after long time target MeadWestvaco (MWV) announced plans to spin off its specialty chemical business… Read More »
Titans of the hedge fund industry, including John Paulson, Carl Icahn, Nelson Peltz (and many more), gathered at the Pierre Hotel this past Wednesday for CNBC’s Delivering Alpha conference. There was a lot of Fed talk (Stanley Druckenmiller is not a fan), musings on the economy and of course, the proverbial ‘talking up the book’. It took a… Read More »
MeadWestvaco(MWV) announced this morning that shareholders as of April 24, will receive .32986547 shares of ACCO Brands(ABD) on May 1, following the spinoff of the company’s Consumer & Office Products Business, and its subsequent merger with ACCO. Concurrent with the merger, ACCO will change its ticker from ABD to ACCO. The transaction is a “Reverse Morris Trust”, which… Read More »
In a famous Saturday Night Live sketch, a young Steve Martin promised that “You too can be a millionaire, and not pay taxes.” While the advice he proceeded to give was ineffective, using a reverse Morris Trust, your favorite company can sell off a division and not pay taxes. How you ask? Simple. First, borrow as much debt… Read More »