Joel Greenblatt built his “Special Situation Investing” course around the idea that market anomalies—corporate actions like spin-offs, mergers, liquidations and reorganizations—create predictable pricing gaps. He starts by defining a “special situation” as any non-recurring event that forces a market re-evaluation of a company’s intrinsic value. Spin-offs top the list because parent companies often dump newly created units onto the market at low multiples. Greenblatt shows that these units routinely jump 20–40% once they attract independent analysts. The course catalogues a dozen categories: spin-offs, rights offerings, recapitalizations, mergers, bankruptcies and asset sales, among others. For each, he lays out a step-by-step checklist—key documents to read, metrics to track and common legal pitfalls. In a merger arbitrage example, he points out that deal spreads shrink or widen based on regulatory risk and financing structure, quantifying past spreads to show how much expected return remains after factoring in deal breakage odds. He spends a big chunk of time on valuation tweaks. Greenblatt tweaks standard discounted-cash-flow models to account for deal timing and financing fees. He also stresses the importance of “catalyst visibility”—knowing exactly when a spin-off or restructuring will happen. Without a catalyst date, you can’t estimate your holding period or annualize returns. Throughout, he peppers in real numbers from his own Columbia class—examples of spin-off buys at 4× EBITDA that closed at 8× within six months, or merger arbitrage positions yielding 12–18% annualized returns in nine weeks. Finally, he wraps each case study in a brief risk assessment: regulatory hold-ups, financing gaps or bidder competition. That practical focus makes the course notes more than theory—they’re a toolkit for spotting and acting on market inefficiencies.