1. A strategy of unrelated diversification has appeal from several angles:
a. Business risk is scattered over a set of truly diverse industries
b. The company’s financial resources can be employed to maximum advantage by investing in whatever industries offer the best profit prospects
c. To the extent that corporate managers are exceptionally astute at spotting bargain-priced companies with big upside profit potential, shareholder wealth can be enhanced by buying distressed businesses at a low price, turning their operations around fairly quickly with infusions of cash and managerial know-how supplied by the parent company
d. Company profitability may prove somewhat more stable over the course of economic upswings and downswings
2. Unrelated diversification can be appealing in several other circumstances such as when a firm needs to diversify away from an endangered or unattractive industry and has no distinct competencies or capabilities it can transfer to an adjacent industry. There is also a rationale for unrelated diversification to the extent that owners have a strong preference for spreading business risks widely and not restricting themselves to investing in a family of closely related businesses.
3. Building Shareholder Value Via Unrelated Diversification: Building shareholder value via unrelated diversification is predicated on executive skill in managing a group of unrelated businesses.
4. In more specific terms, this means that corporate level executives must:
a. Do a superior job of diversifying into new businesses that can produce consistently good earnings and returns on investment
b. Do an excellent job of negotiating favorable acquisition prices
c. Discern when it is the right time to sell a particular business
d. Shift corporate resources out of businesses where profit opportunities are dim and into businesses with the potential for above-average earnings growth and returns on investment
e. Do such a good job overseeing the firm’s business subsidiaries and contributing to how they are managed that the subsidiaries perform at a higher level than they would otherwise be able to do
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