MoatScopeStock spin-offs: upcoming, recent, and seasoned
Every spin-off, split-off, and Reverse Morris Trust registered with the SEC, from the parent’s announcement through the first three years of trading. Each row links to the primary documents — the Form 10, the information statement, the announcement 8-K and press release — and, once the new company trades, shows MoatScope’s moat rating, quality score, and price-to-fair-value on it.
0 separations tracked · 0 pending · 0 completed in the last 12 months · 0 in the 12–36 month window. Updated weekly from EDGAR.
Upcoming
Announced separations and filed Form 10s, soonest expected distribution first. Terms are as stated in the latest filing and change in amendments — the documents are the source of truth.
Completed in the last 12 months
The forced-selling window. Holders who received shares they never chose are still working through them; market cap, moat rating and quality score are the new company’s own.
Seasoned: 12 to 36 months since distribution
The window where the long-run studies found most of the excess return — after the indiscriminate selling has cleared and the new company has a full year of stand-alone results.
Why spin-offs get their own page
When a company hands a division to its own shareholders, the new stock lands in portfolios that never chose it. Index funds sell because the new company is not in their index. Large-cap managers sell because it is now a mid-cap. Income funds sell because it pays no dividend. None of that selling has anything to do with what the business is worth, and it can run for weeks after the distribution date. Studies going back to the 1960s have found that spin-offs, as a group, beat the market over the two to three years that follow — and that parents tend to do well too, having shed a business that was muddying their story.
The other half of the case is people. Managers who ran a division inside a conglomerate are paid in their own company’s stock for the first time, usually with grants struck at the early, depressed prices. Capital allocation that used to be decided at headquarters is now decided by the people closest to the business. The Form 10 tells you exactly how those incentives are set up, months before the first trade — which is why every row above links to it.
The four questions
Every separation gets worked through the same checklist. Write-ups are being added separation by separation, alongside the moat rating, quality score and fair value estimate on both companies.
Indiscriminate selling
Is there a structural reason holders will dump the new shares regardless of price — dropped from the parent’s index, too small for the mandates that owned the parent, or in a different industry from the one the parent’s shareholders signed up for?
Management incentives
How are the new company’s executives paid? A large slice of compensation in its own stock and options, set after the separation, plus meaningful insider ownership, is the signal to look for. Which company the parent’s best people chose to go with says a lot too.
The hidden jewel
Is a high-return business being freed from a slower parent that obscured it? Or is the parent shedding a weak unit to reveal its own value — in which case the parent, not the spin-off, may be the stock to own?
Leverage
Did the parent load the new company with debt, or take a cash distribution on the way out? Heavy debt turns the equity into a leveraged bet on the business: far more upside if it performs, real risk of impairment if it does not.
The questions lead to two conclusions: which leg to own — the parent, the new company, both, or neither — and the timing window, because the forced-selling stretch right after distribution and the second year afterward have historically been very different places to buy.
How to read the tables
Announced means the parent has said it intends to separate a business but no registration statement exists yet. Form 10 filed means the new company’s registration statement is public. Its information statement — exhibit 99.1 — is the one document to read: business description, historical financials, capital structure at separation, executive pay, and the distribution mechanics are all in it. When-issued means the new shares trade ahead of the distribution. Completed rows show the new company’s market cap and MoatScope’s read on it as prices and filings come in.
A ratio of 1 : 4 means one share of the new company for every four shares of the parent. Debt loaded is the new borrowing the spin-off carries out the door, as stated in the filing, with any cash distribution paid up to the parent noted beside it. Price / FV is the new company’s share price divided by MoatScope’s base-case fair value estimate: below 1.00× is trading under our estimate of what the business is worth.
Sources and method
Rows are built from SEC EDGAR: Form 10 registration statements (10-12B and their amendments), the parent’s 8-K announcement and press release, and the exchange listings that follow. Dates and terms are as stated in the most recent filing and remain expected until the distribution is complete. The four-question checklist follows the spin-off framework Joel Greenblatt laid out in You Can Be a Stock Market Genius; the moat ratings, quality scores and fair value estimates are MoatScope’s own.
MoatScope ratings and estimates are research opinions, not investment advice. Spin-off shares are often thinly covered and volatile in their first months of trading.