ServiceMaster spins off American Home Shield

ServiceMaster Global Holdings Inc. spun off its 2,000-employee American Home Shield business on Oct. 1.

American Home Shield, which provides warranties for homeowners on appliances, fixtures and housing, remains the brand name and is part of the newly created parent company Frontdoor Inc.

Frontdoor is the second company carved out of ServiceMaster, joining TruGreen.

ServiceMaster announced the spinoff on the morning of Oct. 1. .

Frontdoor becomes the 14th public company based in metropolitan Memphis.

Frontdoor and ServiceMaster both are based in the Downtown building ServiceMaster moved into last winter. TruGreen is based in East Memphis.

The American Home Shield deal was sought by ServiceMaster’s leadership as a financial reward for its investors. They received shares of Frontdoor stock.

Frontdoor trades on the stock exchange using the ticker symbol FTDR on the Nasdaq market. The company also provides service through the HSA, OneGuard and Landmark home service plan brands.

Rex Tibbens was named Frontdoor president and chief executive officer in May. He had been chief operating officer of Lyft, the San Francisco ride-hailing firm. Earlier, he had been employed at Seattle-based Amazon, where he led technical and product development of Prime Now, a one-hour delivery service.

Frontdoor employs 2,000 workers nationwide and retains a network of more than 15,000 pre-qualified independent contractors who employ about 45,000 workers. The company’s contact centers in five states service customers across its four brands.

ServiceMaster shareholders received one share of Frontdoor common stock on Oct. 1 for every two shares of ServiceMaster common stock they held at the close of business on the record date for the distribution, Sept. 14.

ServiceMaster retained about 19.8 percent of Frontdoor’s common stock.

ServiceMaster Global Holdings’ six remaining brands are AmeriSpec, Furniture Medic, Merry Maids, ServiceMaster Clean, ServiceMaster Restore and Terminix.

Memphis-area public companies traded on stock exchanges consist of Frontdoor and AutoZone, EdR, FedEx, First Horizon, Fred’s, GTx, International Paper, Jernigan Capital, MAA, Mueller Industries, Paragon Bank, ServiceMaster and Wright Medical.