It's no great secret that Alberto-Culver
On Monday morning, Alberto-Culver announced a new plan for separating its two business units. Each Alberto-Culver shareholder will get one share each of the two new businesses, as well as a $25-per-share special dividend. To fund that dividend, Alberto-Culver will take on $1.85 billion in new debt, as well as sell a large chunk of Sally Beauty to private equity partner Clayton, Dubiller, Rice.
With the sale, the consumer products business will largely remain what it is today -- a niche-oriented company that is far smaller than rivals like Colgate-Palmolive
The Sally Beauty business, though, might really benefit from being out on its own -- I've been in the stores a few times and thought they could be much better than they were. Perhaps the freedom and responsibility that will come from being out from under Alberto-Culver will give the new company the means and the motivation to make those changes.
Folks who've held onto Alberto-Culver stock this long might just want to stick around and see how it all shakes out. After all, it's not all that uncommon for spin-offs and break-ups to do better than the parent company did, even if it's not immediately obvious which company will do better at the time of the separation.
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Fool contributor Stephen Simpson but has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).