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Non-Tech : SPIN-OFFS "secret hiding places of stock market profits" -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Senior who wrote (296)	2/20/1999 1:29:00 AM
From: Stewart Whitman	Respond to of 1185

One of the best things about following spin-offs is you begin to see sectors where the industries are truly in a restructuring phase. The chemical industry, over the past year has been in such a phase. Several chemical companies have been persued an aggressive strategy of separating their "fast growing" parts from the "no/low growth" commodity parts: Great Lakes - ? (growth) Octel - lead gasoline additive,other (commodity) Olin - ammunitions,brass,chlor alkali (commodity products) Arch Chemical - high-purity,water,microelectronics (growth) General Chemical - soda ash, calcium chloride (commodity) Gentek - auto parts,performance chemicals (growth) Akzo Nobel - healthcare,coatings,chemicals ? Acordis - polymers ? I was surprised to see so many reasonably-sized and similar spin-offs from the same industry. The commodity parts seem to be doing terribly, but the growth parts look very attractive when valued at the multiples of the parent. I traded the Olin I had in for Arch when the when-issued shares were at 15. Olin had been investing heavily in those segments - new plants, etc. - there should be some P/E expansion. I'll be looking for a similar opportunity when the Gentek spin-off comes around (although I'm not quite comfortable with a single majority shareholder). And, I'm still holding my Octel shares...ZZZZ. Haven't looked at Acordis yet. Stew