Out Fox The $treet

A recent analyst note compared the slow dismembering of Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD ) to playing the popular Jenga game. As most people know, Jenga is a game where players take out pieces of a structure hoping that the overall structure doesn’t collapse. The goal is to not be the player that causes the structure to collapse, and in the case of Sears Holdings, you don't want to be more » Disclosure: Long SHLD. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

This is the third part of a series on Sears Holdings (SHLD) with the focus of this part on the pending spin-offs of the Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores (SHOS) and Sears Canada (SCC.TO) . One of the opportunities of creating value for the Sears shareholders is to unload some of the assets buried on the balance sheet. How many investors that owned the stock last year even knew about the Orchard Supply Hardware Stores (OSH) stores or these spin-off properties? All of these assets have been buried and under appreciated for a long time. As mentioned, this is the third part of a series. Previously, the first part focused on the highlights of Q2 earnings while the second part focused on the case study prepared by Bruce Berkowitz and Fairholme Funds. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long SHLD. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

The major difference between an IPO and a spin-off is that one gets major media 'spin', while the other can be vastly ignored. The lack of a major financial transaction-- and hence, fees-- tends to reduce the push by investment houses. Just by viewing articles posted on this very website one can quickly derive that the general public has less interests in spin-offs versus IPOs, to their own detriment. This provides a major advantage to alert investors. Outside the major spin-offs, like the upcoming ones at Kraft (KFT) and ConnocoPhillips (COP), the others fall under the radar by the investing community. Historically, spin-offs have provided solid returns for savvy investors. This is partly due to investors ignoring or not understanding the new security, but also because spin-offs allow both the parent and the spun off company to thrive, with each management team free to focus on its direct business. A few interesting spin-offs took place around year-end to little or no fanfare....