New Spin-Offs

By the end of this year, about 60 publicly traded US companies will have split off big pieces of themselves and dozens more will have announced plans to do so. Two recent announcements were from Hewlett-Packard and eBay.

But will these spin-offs — as all of these companies claim — benefit investors by creating more focused businesses that have attractive new ­opportunities?

The spun-off Hewlett-Packard ­Enterprise, which will supply companies with hardware and other computer services, is likely to grow quickly through acquisitions…while HP Inc. will have to figure out how to turn around its sagging personal computer and printer sales.

eBay’s spun-off online payment operation, PayPal, will be free to build partnerships with e-commerce rivals of eBay…seize market share from e-payment competitors…and even be acquired by another company at a large premium to its stock price. But the eBay auction business may struggle to reinvigorate itself.

Here are attractive opportunities in companies that have already been spun off…

Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology (HART), which was spun off from medical-equipment maker Harvard Bioscience, develops medical devices to grow organs outside the body for transplant, including a replacement airway for patients who need a new trachea. That device has passed an important hurdle toward FDA approval.

Synchrony Financial (SYF), formerly a consumer-financing unit of General Electric, is the largest provider of private-label credit cards in the US on behalf of well-known national retailers such as Amazon, Lowe’s and Wal-Mart.