After reading Joel Greenblatt’s You Can Be a Stock Market Genius, I have been on the lookout for special situations–mergers, acquisitions, and spinoffs. The attractive investment instruments often created in such situations (stocks, bonds, warrants, options, etc.) remind me of the exotic short-lived varieties created in when particles are fused or split in accelerators.

One special situation I have been following closely is Viacom’s spinoff of CBS. Others worth looking at:

• Disney's acquisition of Pixar
• McDonald's spin-off of Chipotle Mexican Grill (yum!)
• Tyco's split into three different companies
• Cendant's split into four different companies
• First Data's spin-off of Western Union
• Update: Altria is considering spinning off Kraft. (The June 2001 IPO of Kraft was not a "spin-off".)
• Update: Time Warner is considering a spin-off of AOL.
• Update: Home Depot is acquiring Hughes Supply Inc.
• Update: Valley National Bancorp and BankAtlantic Bancorp may get sold (subscription required) in the near future.
• Update: Merrill Lynch and BlackRock are forming an investment management firm.
• Update: Sovereign Bancorp's sale of a 20% stake to Banco Santander Central Hispano SA.
• Update: Halliburton's proposed sale of a 20% stake in KBR.
• Update: Sara Lee has spun off Hanes Brands
• Update: Sprint has spun off Embarq

IPO Home aggregates good information on IPOs and spin-offs.