Dude, where's my infrastructure spinoff?

Pleased as I was to get a stake in a blue chip name like Brookfield Asset Management during a temporary retreat in the stock price, I'm a bit mystified by the radio silence the company has had since releasing their plans to spin off their infrastructure assets into a separate company in July.

From the release: "Brookfield Infrastructure will focus on high quality, long-life assets that generate stable cash flows, require relatively minimal maintenance capital expenditures and, by virtue of barriers to entry and other characteristics, tend to appreciate in value over time."

Sounds like my kind of holding. But the company hasn't said a peep about this plan since the original July announcement, and I'm wondering what's going on. The spin-off was meant to take the form of a special dividend of $1 per Brookfield share, and trade on the NYSE. I assumed it was somewhat imminent, but here we are, five months later, and still nothing.

I'm sure the plans haven't materially changed, but I'm still puzzled by the lack of information. I've been poking around on the company's filings on SEDAR but I can't seem to find even a vague mention of a date anywhere. It's curious.

Trading notes

Bought some stocks this week for the first time in a while. To me they're both value plays, but time will tell, I suppose, if they'll be good turnarounds or if I've fallen into a couple of value traps.

Friday's sell-off gave me an excellent opportunity to take a stake in a long-term holding I've been waiting for an entry point for a while now: Brookfield Asset Management. (BAM.A on the TSX) I love -- love-- the management of this company, and the fact that their strategy is to make money from managing other assets (hence the name.) I also like the new focus on infrastructure assets, which I think are going to be great cash generators in the coming years. The stock took a 7% haircut on Friday due to fears about subprime exposure. So I jumped in. But the stock is already back up above where it was before the market got rattled. I'm predicting this will be a long-term holding.

The other move was to double up my stake in Biovail. I outlined my reasons why I was tempted in this post last week. In short, everyone's scared by the pipeline of drugs drying up, but I think that's only temporary. The FDA mess will get sorted, and the new drug plans unveiled this morning were an unexpected surprise. In the mean time, I'm more than happy to sit on that fat yield of more than 8%. The sell-off in the stock this morning after underwhelming financial results gave me the opportunity to buy in. I don't think Biovail's going to be a base of my portfolio for years to come ( I know all too well how volatile it tends to be) but I dunno -- the market has shaved off more than a quarter of the market cap in about a month, and that seems like an over-reaction to me. With all that cash on hand, that dividend seems safe for a long while.

That's it for now.

As always, do your own homework before making any investment decisions.

That's it for now.