Stock market investing: The payoff in spinoffs

Article Excerpt

As we’ve often pointed out, most spinoffs lead to above-average results for a period of years, for both the parent company and the company that gets created and spun off. So it’s no surprise that EnCana’s decision to split itself up into two companies — one focusing on natural gas, the other on oil sands and oil refineries — has already begun to pay off for its shareholders. ENCANA CORP. $91 (Toronto symbol ECA) differs from the typical spinoff in that the two portions are of comparable size. More often, the spinoff company is much smaller than the parent. But the principle is the same. The management is breaking up the company into two or more parts, despite the fact that this works against management’s interests, by reducing the assets to manage. Good managers do this for two reasons. First, they aim to serve shareholders’ interests. Second, the two companies generally experience an increase in stock values and/or a speedup in…