How can I build my own spinoff list?
Investors sometimes ask, “Can’t I do this myself? How do I get a free list of spinoffs?” The answer is yes, you can learn about some U.S. spinoffs through public filings at the SEC Edgar website, and on this page we’ll explain how. But as you examine this, consider the value of your time.
Partial list at the SEC Edgar website
Most U.S.-domiciled spinoffs file a Form 10-12B with the SEC. So for a free spinoff list, just check this list of 10-12B filings at the SEC website. That’s it. Incredibly, we’ve seen one website charging money just to tell you how to visit that link. Caveat emptor.
The definitive book on spinoff investing
For a more general primer on spinoff investing, we recommend You Can Be a Stock Market Genius, by Joel Greenblatt. Despite the salesy title, this is a well-researched book. The author is a successful hedge fund manager, Wharton alum, and lecturer at the Columbia University business school. We have no affiliation with Mr. Greenblatt.
Our value proposition
Why tell you all this? Because it helps explain how our research adds value.
As you will discover at the SEC Edgar site, spinoff investment analysis is time consuming. The filings are hundreds of pages long. The financial data is not available from data services like Compustat or Reuters. Most importantly, not all spinoffs are filed as form 10-12b — some are hidden in form 8-K and other filings.
Even then, one still misses spinoffs like Dutch life insurer NN Group, which trades in the U.S. as NNGPF, but is foreign-domiciled, and thus had no US filings at the time of the spinoff. The more obscure the spinoff, the greater the potential for mispricing, so the harder-to-reach ones can be among the best. In short, it is a major commitment to track all spinoffs.
Because this is all we do, our coverage is more complete, both in the US and globally, than the typical investor can readily achieve independently or through any other source. This is precisely why spinoffs perform well — the required effort creates a barrier to investment, resulting in opaqueness and mispricing.
Consider the value of your time
Suppose your time is worth $50 per hour ($100,000 per year). Why spend 20 hours a month reading SEC filings (value $1000 in research time), when you can get more complete coverage, highly condensed, for a tenth of that price? This is the value proposition of Spinoff & Reorg Profiles.
Thus, for the serious spinoff investor (our audience is approximately 80% investment managers and 20% retail investors), Spinoff & Reorg Profiles is an excellent value.
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