Corporate America has been deploying some interesting financial "tricks" lately as they look to pad their bottom line in this sluggish economy.

Last month in StreetAuthority Daily, we talked about how large U.S. companies were using leveraged buybacks to boost their stock valuations by borrowing at ultra-low interest rates to buy up millions of their own shares.

More recently, we talked about how corporations have used "tax inversions" to lower their tax liability and boost profits by moving to countries with significantly lower corporate tax rates, like Ireland or Canada.

Most importantly, we told you how both of these financial engineering tactics have led investors to gains of 70% in 15 months, or even gains of 391% in less than 5 years.

There's another corporate trick that's been popping up more recently that could very well lead investors to similar gains.

I'm talking about spinoffs.

A few weeks ago, online retailer Ebay (Nasdaq: EBAY) announced it would spin off its financial payments arm, Paypal. PC manufacturer Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) is one of the latest companies to announce it will split itself in two.

And these are far from the only ones. The research firm Spin-Off Advisors expect there will be 62 spinoffs completed by the end of 2014 -- the most since 2000 (when there were 66).

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This spinoff frenzy is likely to continue into next year. Say what you will about the "gimmickry," but if history is any guide, this could be a profitable opportunity for investors.

There are some smart reasons why companies are splintering themselves as of late. As this article pointed out recently, the profit cycle of companies is maturing and "pricing power is muted, leaving growth-starved big companies looking to liberate faster-growing units or cast off sluggish ones as a way to wring more value from the sum of their parts."

Our resident income and growth expert, Nathan Slaughter, touted the monumental gains that investors have seen in the past by investing in spinoffs in an issue of his premium newsletter, Total Yield.

Here's what he said back in June 2014:

"Some of the most brilliant investors on Wall Street have been cashing in on spinoffs for decades. You may have heard of renowned money manager Joel Greenblatt. Over an illustrious career spanning more than twenty years, the Gotham Capital hedge fund manager racked up annualized returns of 40%, eclipsing even his mentor Warren Buffett."

This is not just an isolated example. Nathan points out that several studies have shown that spinoffs significantly outperform the market, sometimes by as much as 4-to-1: