USE BLOOMBERG TO SEARCH FOR CORPORATE ACTIONS

A corporate action is an event initiated by a public company that affects the securities (equity or debt) issued by the company.

Login to the Bloomberg Terminal

We are using Chesapeake Energy Corp as our example. The Ticker for this company on Bloomberg is CHK

In order to search for this company, we either can use the ticker or enter the security number (CUSIP) assigned to it. Even typing the name will take you to the company page.

Type CHK and press Equity button on the Bloomberg(BBG) keyboard and then hit enter.

Type DES on the title bar and hit enter again. It will take you to the Description page(DES) as shown below.

The description pages give brief descriptions about the company and a lot of financial information as you see above.

Now clicking Page down on BBG keyboard or typing Des2 on the title bar will take you to page 2 as shown below. We can see the security numbers (CUSIP and SEDOL) for this company here.

Now, in order to see all the corporate actions announced by this company, we type CACS on the title bar and hit enter. The below screen appears which lists all past, present and proposed future events as well.

Here’s the article about the recent announcement of sale of Chesapeake assets

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/earth_to_power/2015/07/fourpoint-energy-snagging-oklahoma-assets-from.html

We can see that on the screen too which dated 08/31/15 in the name of Divestiture.

Divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for financial, ethical, or political objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm. A divestment is the opposite of an investment.

Either double click on the event or press 1 and hit enter to view further details about the corporate action.

The screen above shows the terms of the events and parties involved. In this case $840 cash will be paid for one asset. However, this event is not yet completed in the market. That’s the reason status is still showing as pending. Once it’s completed in the market, cash will be paid out to the acquirer.

The below screens appear by clicking on the left panel from Summary through Sources/News.

Now the same information will be available on the Acquirer page too. From the CACS screen, we can find out the acquirer ticker.

Now CACS and hit enter

This is the same process for any corporate action. Let it be a Cash Dividend, Stock Dividend, Spin off, etc.

Let’s look at another event pertaining to Conoco Phillips. Their ticker is COP

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/11/conocophillips-indonesia-portfolio-idUSL3N10M3L620150811

Now following the same steps

DES

DES2

CACS

In this event, status shows as proposed. So this event is neither pending nor completed. It’s just a proposal as mentioned in the article. No terms are announced either.