dyow

Makes sense, thanks.....for the reasons you pointed out, i assumed mgmt/the exchange would "guide" the market initially because of the complexities in valuing 2 companies after a separation - but when trading begins the market would decide. The tax cost basis is a good point, i would assume that if mgmt gives guidance in terms of how tax basis should be allocated - this should approximate their assigned values to each business.

No, no, no. The only thing that matters is at what price people are willing to buy and sell Co A and Co B. Maybe the next day Co A opens at $1 dollar and Co B opens at $100 dollar... there is no formula, or any rule. The price of the new stock can be lower or higher than the price of the original company. Interesting, and if the case, i was completely off. i understand that the trading on that day could cause the price to fluctuate to anything. I assumed that that there was some type of mechanism/guidance on the initial spin. I noticed that there is a "when issued" market before the spin off, this might be the mechanism for the market to try and determine the potential spin off price. I need to look more into this...thanks. The let the market figure it out makes sense to me, idk why i assumed otherwise, it must be bc i have gone insane.

You are right i edited the post thanks...not thinking straight today

So I want to understand the impact of a spin. Let me know if i am correct. Company A stock price is $10. The Company will spin a B co. Every share of A will get one share of B. Before the spin, the company will assign a value to Co A (say 80%) and Co B (20%) and will notify the exchange. On the day of the spin the exchange will assign the opening trading price of Co A at $8, and Co B will trade at $2 - based on the allocation the company has specified. Is this how it works? The company i am looking at has not mentioned anywhere the value allocation so i have no idea where to find this info before the spin (i looked at all their filings/CCs etc). Even checked the OCC site for the impact on options after the spin....but i found nothing. anybody know if there is a way to get this info?.....I might have to call IR bc i can't find this anywhere, but thought i would try here first.

repurchasing equity capital doesnt create equity or regulatory capital jr preferreds are carried at par on the balance sheet. if you retire some or all at 2/3 of par, then the remaining 1/3 value drops to common equity. ie a buffer. true only if buying back debt help me out here. assume 100bn assets, 80bn debt, 5bn preferred, 15bn common on the balance sheet. the 5bn is repurchased for 3bn cash. so assets goes to 97bn. debt stays same at 80bn. doesn't common value go to 17bn? equity capital doesnt go up if no equity is issued and equity is retired In a corp that would be a gain of 2B that would hit retained earnings - so common 15 + 2 retained earnings. Retained earnings/common stock is in shareholder's equity so that would be 17B. If you buyback something at discount to the balance sheet amount the gain goes to shareholders.

Yeah, personally i always want to hear other people's views on my position, good and bad. Agree on shareholder meetings I would assume they would be a lot more open to talking there.

I probably wouldn't find someone because i like managing everything myself. Yes i think you are right and "the no benefit to us" thing might be the biggest issue - but I think i can add value so it would not be just me benefiting (but obviously we won't know this until we talk). These funds i am trying to talk to are smaller. Yeah Klarman is super secretive and the size of his fund makes the rules much more strict - i am not even sure if he explains to his investors why he buys certain securities. ...thanks.

Let's say you are not invested in a fund, have no connection to them, except that you own a specific stock position they own as well. I tried to talk to a fund that owns a stock I own - and I plan on contacting a couple more. For the fund I called I never got through to the actual fund manager. But the person that answered the phone mentioned that they don't discuss their positions because of legal issues/lawyer related stuff. They are not on the board of directors of that company. I don't know of any rules where you can't discuss your positions with other shareholders - i was under the impression that funds were able to discuss their positions freely with anybody. Also all the information discussed would be public information, nothing new, i just wanted to compare assumptions and the thesis - I am thinking this fund just doesn't want to talk, and there are no legal issues, but i don't know, i don't run a fund.

he should focus on the value investor digest, i have read a couple of issues, they were pretty good.

Beerbaron is money. I spoke with management, everything you said is pretty much right, i was looking at it the wrong way. beerbaron for president of COBF.

Thanks, you make points I did not even consider. I would assume it would be a net benefit, but who knows, implementing and executing is another story. I see what you are saying about costs, expense/cost efficiencies might really come into play if they scale the business, which makes sense. This business is is actually shrinking/maintaining stores, which makes things less clear. The more I think of it I might also be looking at it wrong in that the main benefits might actually come from employees having more free time/and more real time data to focus their energy on serving customers, which might help revenue, but is hard to quantify. Thanks for the info.

Very general question. Let's say we have a retail company with smaller type 1000 stores, makes 2 Billion in revenue and net margins of the business are slim 1-3% (after selling and admin and cost of goods sold). About 1500-2000 employees, max 100 work at head office. The company currently has a very dated system and uses old systems and outsources back office work to a 3rd party. It looks very inefficient. They are overhauling the whole IT system (new system provided by Netsuite Inc.), cloud computing. They are also putting in new point of sale systems in all the stores. They expect to have better control of information and make processes more efficient. They will use the new system to buy directly from suppliers which they have not been able to do in the past. They are calling the new system "new and state of the art". So my question is what the hell does this mean? I know very little about this stuff but am trying to learn and mgmt has not provided guidance. When looking from the outside it is very difficult to assess this, especially if you know very little about IT. How much money can be saved here (I don't need a number obviously, but I am trying to quantify this as best I can). Does anybody here have experience with something like this at a high level? Does this impact costs throughout the value chain? Thanks in advance

I will have a short on-line university course out in the next 4-6 weeks, that is designed with very much this in mind. Amongst other things the expectation is that it will take the learner through the block chain due diligence process from vision through to implementation, demonstrate via a case study - implementation of clear token in a charity application; demonstrate via a case study - implementation of colored token in a bond issuance application, and conclude with a project where the learner tries it out him/herself under guidance. If you then wish to do it 'for real' afterwards ... I know a great consultant who can help you - at a very reasonable rate net of a COBF 'friends and family' discount ;) SD Where do I sign up?

I will look into this, thanks for the heads up! My technology skills are horrendous.

I mostly do this. Great. Do you have examples...more is better. No. Examples or evidence won't change your mind, you will block it out and look for evidence that aligns with your view. A bunch of bullshit. You do not have an example to share. Edit: i don't mind getting called out.........he is right for all he knows i could be lying. We need more confrontation on this board. Better to get your feelings hurt than to lose your life savings on an investment mistake.