How are stock shares handled in a public company spinoff?

[Parliament 14357]

Rumors are my employer (a Fortune 500) is gonna split off the roughly 40% of the side of the business I work for.  I own some stock in our company and I'm wondering how the stock shares are handled.  Will the old stock be retired and holders will get equivalent shares of each company (the existing company and the spinoff)?

[Wally Fairway 5596]

Typically 1/2 of what you own goes to people you ask for help on the Internet.

Or you should get a proportionate share of the new company, as your ownership% in the old company 

[elfenix 34353]

no they'll just issue all the shareholders of a certain date of the existing company with shares in the new company.  probably 1:1. 

[We’reTexas 1473]

^^^yep in the classic structure you just dividend it out, but there are other structures (IPO, asset sale, etc). 

[CooterBrown 18037]

no they'll just issue all the shareholders of a certain date of the existing company with shares in the new company.  probably 1:1. 

This is what happened when our company split.

The two companies were each maybe 70% and 30% of the old stock price. So, we kept 70% of the former company and 30% of the new company.

[Parliament 14357]

I would likely sell my shares in the other company.  How would capital gains work?  Is the "base" adjusted to reflect the split? 

[hornmpa96 2622]

Yes - Tax Basis will be split between the old shares and the new shares based on the relative values on the day of the spin-off.

[Longhornsnus 200]

15 hours ago, Parliament said:

Rumors are my employer (a Fortune 500) is gonna split off the roughly 40% of the side of the business I work for.  I own some stock in our company and I'm wondering how the stock shares are handled.  Will the old stock be retired and holders will get equivalent shares of each company (the existing company and the spinoff)?

You are on the Marcus/Apple/consumer side of GS? Oof