DANAHER CORP /DE/ DHR → Veralto Corporation VLTO
| Parent | DANAHER CORP /DE/ DHR |
|---|---|
| Spinco | Veralto Corporation VLTO |
| Status | Completed |
| Structure | Spin-off A filing states a pro-rata distribution: holders receive shares automatically. |
| Focus | Focus-increasing Parent and spinco operate in different industries — the class the research associates with stronger post-separation returns. |
| Ratio | 1 Veralto share for every 3 Danaher shares |
| Checked against EDGAR | 2026-08-22 |
Data trap
The distribution date is a Saturday. September 30, 2023 was not a trading day, so no Veralto price exists on the date the filings call the distribution date, and anything anchored mechanically to it finds nothing. The first regular-way session was Monday, October 2. Note also that the Form 10 effectiveness date is not stated in any filing read, so that field is null rather than inferred from the surrounding dates.
The restated filings have landed; this is kept as history.
Catalyst clock
- 2022-09-14Separation announced
- 2023-08-03Form 10 filed
- 2023-08-31Form 10 last amended
- —Form 10 effective
- 2023-09-13Record date
- —When-issued trading opens
- 2023-09-30Distribution
- 2023-10-25First standalone earnings
- —Index inclusion announced
Performance since separation
| Veralto Corporation since separation | +16.04% |
|---|---|
| DANAHER CORP /DE/ over the same window | +2.39% |
| S&P 500 (SPY) over the same window | +79.20% |
| Russell 2000 (IWM) over the same window | +72.32% |
| Excess over the S&P 500 | -63.16% |
| Excess over the Russell 2000 | -56.28% |
Measured from the first regular-way close on or after the distribution — 2023-10-02 at 85.12 — to 2026-08-21 at 98.77. Window: 2.9 years. Two benchmarks, because one is misleading: spin-offs are usually small companies, and across this period small caps lagged the S&P by several points a year on their own. Measured against the S&P alone, roughly a third of any shortfall is company size rather than the separation. Returns are arithmetic over end-of-day closing prices. Unlike every other figure on this page, they do not come from a filing.
Pre-distribution investor return
| Parent, announcement to separation | -11.94% |
|---|---|
| Combined (DANAHER CORP /DE/ + Veralto Corporation), pre-distribution to now | +14.48% |
| Combined excess over the S&P 500 | -64.64% |
| Combined excess over the Russell 2000 | -55.24% |
Combined treats a pre-spin holding as 1 Veralto share for every 3 Danaher shares valued at the parent's last close before regular post-spin trading resumed — 2023-09-29 at 219.92 — against that same basket today. That baseline is a practical proxy, not an attempt to isolate exactly how much value the separation transferred: for a large parent and a small spinco, ordinary day-to-day price noise can be bigger than the transfer itself. Run-up measures only the parent's own price, from the announcement date to that same baseline — how far the market had already moved before the separation's mechanics ever happened.
Filings
Every fact on this page comes from one of these.
- 10-12Bfiled 2023-08-03 · 0001628280-23-027286Initial Form 10 registration statement
- 10-12B/Afiled 2023-08-31 · 0001628280-23-031040Final Form 10 amendment; its cover carries no effectiveness date
- 8-Kfiled 2023-10-02 · 0001967680-23-000005Completion: distribution effective 12:01 a.m. on September 30, 2023; attaches the definitive information statement and the press release confirming the first regular-way session on October 2
- 10-Qfiled 2023-10-26 · 0001967680-23-000011First periodic report; 246,308,057 shares outstanding
Notes
Danaher's separation of its water quality and product identification businesses, completing its repositioning around life sciences and diagnostics. Left unclassified: parent and spinco share a two-digit SIC group, which scores non-focus-increasing, but Danaher described the separation as a deliberate narrowing of focus and the end markets have little in common. Classified focus_increasing: Danaher's own letter frames the retained business as concentrated in 'biotechnology, life sciences and diagnostics,' while Veralto holds the Water Quality and Product Quality & Innovation businesses (Hach, Videojet, X-Rite, Pantone, ChemTreat) — different end markets by the filing's own definitional language, not a SIC artifact. Veralto issued roughly $2.6 billion of new debt and paid essentially all of it straight back to Danaher as separation consideration, dropping pro forma equity from $3.3 billion to $1.0 billion — a leveraged recap, not a clean 100% distribution. CEO Jennifer Honeycutt and most of the leadership team are Danaher Business System veterans; a board nominee, Shyam Kambeyanda, is CEO of ESAB — itself spun off from Colfax and already tracked on this site.