Planned divestment—A five-step approach

Abstract Corporate strategy is a risk business. However good management is, the best it can do is to improve the hit rate. As a result, companies have a continual need for divesting their less successful operations. Human nature being what it is, however, there is a tendency to suppress admission of failure. Divestments are often buried darkly at the dead of night. In consequence, firms fail to realize the true value of their divestments. The authors propose a superior approach which has produced successful results for a number of their clients over the years. It requires placing the same degree of professionalism and effort on divestment as on investment decisions and pays dividends in terms of a greater sale value for companies.