In January, under pressure from Elliott Management, Marathon Petroleum(MPC) announced a formal review of the company’s strategic options for its Speedway business. At the time, it seemed that a spinoff was both Elliott’s goal and a likely outcome of the review process. After all, the industry has seen several petroleum companies spin off their convenience store divisions. Marathon… Read More »
After pressure from activist firm Engine Capital, CST Brands (CST), a 2013 spinoff from Valero (VLO), announced in early March that it was considering its strategic options. Based on this announcement, Jim Cramer was willing to give his blessing ‘to speculate’ on the name even though it wasn’t ‘exactly what you would call cheap’. While that hardly seemed… Read More »
Judging by our tables and readership, spinoffs have become pretty popular and apparently, even Jim Cramer is a fan. Speaking on his show last week, Cramer exclaimed that he is ‘a huge backer of this break-up strategy, in part because the stock market prefers smaller, easy-to-understand, pure-play type companies over big, complicated conglomerates.’ Continuing with the spinoff theme, Cramer… Read More »
We didn’t really cover this saga, but last year Hess Corporation (HES) was embroiled in a heated proxy battle with Paul Singer’s Elliott Management. The fund argued (and put together a nice presentation) that the company was poorly managed, had lousy governance (too many cronies on the board) and was undervalued on a sum of the parts basis.… Read More »
Six months after completing its spinoff of CST Brands(CST), Valero(VLO) has sold off all of its remaining shares in the convenience store operator, CST announced yesterday. Valero sold 15,079,448 shares in an underwritten public offering after the underwriters exercised their over-allotment option in full. CST has risen 8.98% since its May 2 close, lagging the S&P 500. Nonetheless, given… Read More »
It’s official folks. Valero (VLO) completed the spinoff of CST Brands (CST) and the company began trading today as an independent entity on the NYSE. The new company operates in the US & Canada as an independent retailer of fuel and convenience merchandise while Valero is now a “more-focused refining, wholesale marketing, and alternative fuels company.” The Motley Fool’s Jim Royal is… Read More »
Thanks to several alert readers who point out that, while we were asleep at the wheel, Valero(VLO) announced the final details of its CST Brands spinoff. It was just last week that we reported the company was two steps away. Those steps are now complete. Valero issued a press release on April 4, confirming that it had received… Read More »
Investors who have long been anticipating Valero’s(VLO) spinoff of retail division CST Brands(CST) won’t have to wait much longer. According to Convenience Store News, Valero Chief Financial Officer Mike Ciskowski said at a recent luncheon that the company was just waiting for an IRS ruling that the transaction would be tax free to shareholders, and for final Board… Read More »
Earnings season is always chock full of spinoff news. Valero (VLO) recently provided updates on its upcoming retail segment spinoff during its Q4 conference call and during a presentation at the Credit Suisse Energy Summit. PDF versions of the transcript & presentation can be found here. The new company, CST Brands, operates ~1,900 retail fuel and merchandise sites… Read More »
After close to a year of deliberation, Murphy Oil (MUR) announced that its board of directors approved the spin off of its downstream subsidiary, Murphy Oil USA. The transaction is expected to be completed in 2013 and is a continuation of the process started earlier this year when Murphy announced that it was ‘considering its strategic options’ for its retail unit. As a… Read More »
While releasing its Q2 earnings, Valero Energy (VLO) also dropped news of its plans to separate retail unit. While Valero is best known for its refining business, the company also operates over 6,000 retail and branded wholesale outlets. According to CapIQ, for the FYE 2011 the retail segment generated $11.7b of revenues and $381m of EBIT, small potatoes… Read More »