Sale Of Crown Jewels

What is ‘Sale Of Crown Jewels ‘

A takeover-defense tactic that involves the sale of the target company’s prized and most coveted assets – the “crown jewels” – so as to reduce its attractiveness to the hostile bidder. The sale of a company’s best assets will leave it as a mere shadow of its former self. This is a type of “kamikaze” defense tactic, which inflicts potentially irreversible damage on a company to prevent it from being acquired by a hostile party.

Explaining ‘Sale Of Crown Jewels ‘

This tactic is sometimes used by conglomerates, which often attract hostile bidders because they can trade at a price below their break-up value due to the “conglomerate discount.” A potential pitfall of this tactic is that a quick sale of prized assets may fetch a price far below what they are actually worth.

Further Reading

  • Agency costs and strategic considerations behind sell‐offs: the UK evidence – onlinelibrary.wiley.com [PDF]
  • Constructing a market, performing theory: The historical sociology of a financial derivatives exchange – www.journals.uchicago.edu [PDF]
  • Golden Parachutes, Crown Jewels and the Arrival of White Knight-Strategies to Defeat a Takeover-What Use in an Era of Rigorous Enforcement of Directors’ Duties – heinonline.org [PDF]
  • Facets of French Heritage: Selling the Crown Jewels in the Early Third Republic – www.journals.uchicago.edu [PDF]
  • 6 No Longer the Crown Jewels of Sport? – books.google.com [PDF]
  • Defending The Corporate Crown Jewels From The Dangers That Lurk Within: Effective Internal Network Security Focuses on Behavior – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • Tsarina’s Necklace: Russian Jewels, Secret Agents, and the – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • The Petroleum Sector in Latin America: Reforming the Crown Jewels-CERI Studies No. 88 – inis.iaea.org [PDF]