Good questions. :-)
1)
I would define a "qualitative" spin-off as one that is made by a high quality company, which seems to have upstanding management and fine owners.
A good example from Sweden is Atlas Copco, which spun off Epiroc some years ago. (Atlas Copco is widely considered Sweden's finest co – it is a nursery for Swedish corporate leaders, and has been owned by the Wallenberg family's co. Investor for more than 100 years).
Another great example is ABB (another 100 year plus holding for Investor), which spun off Accelleron in 2022 and now will spin off another company in 2026.
I am not too knowledgeable about US companies, but Honeywell, which has two upcoming spins, looks like they may perhaps be one? Comcast maybe another.
2)
The Magic Formula strategy is as follows:
Buy a basket of the 20-30 co.'s with has the highest ROIC and lowest EV/EBIT.
This strategy has yielded around 20 % a year for the last 50 years or so.
It continues to outperform because humans don't like to follow such an easy strategy, and because it means buying whats unpopular without "weeding out the weeds" (most attempts to weed out the weeds will actually result in weeding out the winners, as Greenblatt described in his book "The Little Book That Beats The Market" (where the strategy is also described)).
Since you have to "believe" in the strategy in order for it to work (i.e., you have to understand why it works – otherwise you will sell out when the strategy has a rough patch (which it inevitably will sometimes)).
PS.
I have now created a spin-off group, which will mainly deal with upcoming US (and perhaps other) spins:
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