These three spinoffs have a bright future

Article Excerpt

We’ve had great success with companies spun off from larger parent firms in the past few years. That’s mainly because spinoffs let both companies focus on their already well-established businesses. As well, a parent will only hand out a subsidiary’s shares to its own investors if it’s confident the spinoff will benefit both companies. Shares of these three food producers have jumped since they became separate firms. We still like their long-term prospects. But after their recent gains, we see only one as a buy. MONDELEZ INTERNATIONAL INC. $35 (Nasdaq symbol MDLZ; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 1.7 billion; Market cap: $59.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.8; Dividend yield: 1.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.mondelezinternational.com) took its current form on October 1, 2012, when the old Kraft Foods Inc. broke itself into two publicly traded companies: Mondelez International and Kraft Foods Group. Mondelez makes cookies and biscuits (Oreo, Chips Ahoy, Ritz), chocolate bars (Cadbury, Toblerone) and gum and candy (Trident, Chiclets and…