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.

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.