Very boring post!
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SPSD utilizes shared technology with one of the divisions that you mentioned that 3M should retain. I suspect the plant where that particular best selling product is made is also on a similar site with that other division
And ASD? I wonder if they would ever dare spin off the starting point of MMM from 121 years ago. I doubt it.
C-suite
Acelity.
Fair points, however IP can be licensed at a stroke of a pen, and RM supply contracts are done routinely.
The factories/assets are the harder part, and I considered those:
IMPD - Shares effectively nothing with any other division.
SPSD - Near zero asset sharing with anyone since they 99% got out of the air filter business.
HIS - A software division with its own sites, enough said.
ASD, AAD, CHIMD - This is the bulk of abrasives, with a little tape, a little polish and filler and a 90% independent furnace filter business.
TSD - Mostly their own plants, again with very limited technology sharing since overhead projectors went away.
I freely admit this is all very speculative Monopoly trading but if HCBG is being spun off these moves would be trivial in comparison.
What about sun of CRL and other non value add labs, maybe to a nonprofit like SRi
The far flung speculation is fun, but it is near impossible to just carve up divisions like your are trading monopoly properties. Many of these divisions share plants, assets, IP, raw materials, and other vertically integrated corporate resources. Market focused divisions won’t be sold or spun individually, rather assets will divested which may impact small pieces of several divisions. I think selling or spinning as much of the CBG aligned assets and businesses is most likely as these are generally attractive, differentiated, and highly profitable.
I just got d-mber after reading your post
My semi-random, far flung speculations:
(I don't think most of this will happen, but the question was potential spin-offs.)
IMPD is a good suggestion - very possible sale to private equity, no strong ties to any other parts of 3M. I could also see one of their customers buying them to vertically integrate.
SPSD goes away from HCBG - makes no sense with the rest of HCBG. I still can see Danaher buying them.
HIS gets spun off alone or sold to a bigger player in the market, Epic maybe?
The consumer electronics focused divisions, including EMMD, get spun off or sold as a group. I could see a Korean or Japanese firm going for it.
Really wild idea - Saint-Gobain (or ???) buys ASD, AAD, and maybe CHIMD as a group if they can clear anti-trust. The combined margin would be very accretive to Saint-Gobain and they can get the cash.
TSD is sold, probably to private equity as a healthy cash cow to make cash for another 20 years. Their technology is near the end of the road (no pun intended.)
What gets left as 3M is a mostly healthy core industrial business (PSD, IATD, CMSD, AASD, CSD, etc.) with a nice side business in consumer (HCD, SOSD).
Industrial mineral
Other than CBG.