Abstract
Life is rarely easy for spin-offs—companies cobbled together from operations that no longer fit with the grander ambitions of larger corporations. Spin-offs are usually saddled with high debt and legacy liabilities such as retiree benefits and environmental costs. Often they have to foot these bills with cash generated from aging, cyclical businesses. Such issues forced the chemical spin-offs Solutia and Tronox into bankruptcy in the 2000s. After Chemours was spun off from DuPont in 2015, it looked like the firm could similarly crash on the rocks. DuPont loaded Chemours with debt. Its businesses in titanium dioxide, fluorochemicals, and scattered other chemicals weren’t generating much profit. And it faced thousands of personal injury lawsuits related to chemical plant emissions. “At spin, it became abundantly clear that the strength of our portfolio with its world-leading brands and market positions was being overshadowed by an uneasy market sentiment fueled by our legacy liabilities
Published Version
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