Ensign ready to spin off Pennant

Article Excerpt

ENSIGN GROUP INC. $58 (Nasdaq symbol ENSG; Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 53.5 million; Market cap: $3.1 billion; Dividend yield: 0.3%; Takeover Target Rating: Medium; www.ensigngroup.net) provides skilled nursing and senior living services, physical, occupational, and speech therapies, along with home health and hospice services. It operates through 253 health-care facilities, 26 hospice agencies, 25 home health agencies, and nine homecare businesses in 16 states. Ensign now plans to set up its home health, hospice and senior living businesses as one, separate company. It will then hand out shares in the new company to its investors. The spinoff firm will be called The Pennant Group, Inc., and trade on Nasdaq under the “PNTG” symbol. The company aims to complete the transaction by the end of 2019. It will also continue to own all 77 of its real estate properties and lease 28 of them to Pennant. Ensign Group is a spinoff buy. buy…