Why conglomerates break themselves up
Posted on AllSides November 16th, 2021
From The Left
ANALYSIS
Three giant conglomerates announced their breakups in the past week. All of them are seeking to put their recent past behind them.
Why it matters: GE, Johnson & Johnson, and Toshiba weren't the last of the conglomerates. Giants both old and new remain. (Think 3M, or Softbank.) In today's financially-optimized stock market, however, the arguments for internal diversification have mostly lost the day.
Driving the news: GE is splitting into three parts; J&J is splitting into two; Toshiba is splitting into three. In each case, the newly-independent businesses are going to be a lot easier to describe than...