Merger and Acquisitions Recap: Murphy Oil May Lead Spinoffs, IBM Buys Red Bend

Some petroleum spin-offs may be in store, as Third Point has successfully gotten Murphy Oil Corporation (NYSE:MUR) to do just that with its domestic retail unit. Analyst Paul Sankey at Deutsche Bank believes that Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:OXY) and Hess Corporation (NYSE:HES) might be lining themselves up for such moves, because “in both cases, investors have major questions over strategy and execution, and both are trading below NAV.” Meanwhile, ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) is being seen as a sleeper pick.

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International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) is said to be in advanced discussions to acquire Red Bend, which is an Israeli developer of mobile virtualization and device management software, at a price between $200 million and $250 million. The latter’s offerings compete with VMware and Citrix, which permit multiple operating systems to be installed on a mobile device, and assist service providers to handle remote updates.

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