DE-MERGER

A strategy wherein a single business is broken to components, they just have to decide either to operate or their own, or to be sold or to be dissolved. It also allows a large company to conglomerate or to split its various brands. For example, in 2001, British Telecom conducted a de-merger of its mobile phone operations, BT Wireless, in an attempt to boost the performance of its stock. British Telecom took this action because it was struggling under high debt levels from the wireless venture. Another example would be a utility that separates its business into two components: one to manage the utility's infrastructure assets and another to manage the delivery of energy to consumers.