text: early stages of what will eventually become a total disinvestment. This was the case with Hill Samuel, Standard Chartered PLC and Metal Box, which disinvested totally from South Africa pursuant to reducing their stakes in the beginning. A total of 31 companies so far are reported to have reduced their equity interests by this method in South Africa and Namibia, accounting for 2.5 per cent of the overall disinvestment. Of these, 15 companies were from the United Kingdom, 12 from the United States and one each from Austria, France, Netherlands and Switzerland. This method of disinvesting, either by partial sale or dilution through mergers with other companies, reduce their exposure in South Africa without actual withdrawal of capital, but it is difficult to ascertain the economic or political impact of these measures, which will be relatively less than other methods of full-scale withdrawal. In many instances, partial sales amoiint to nothing more than change of ownership, and the parent companies retain more or less the same hold on the financial and commercial markets. 3. s. alg of an ongoing, operation 21. As mentioned before, this method normally takes three forms: (a) sale to a third party; (b) sale to local management; (c) sale to a trust. (a) Sale to a third . Phrty 22. This is the simplest method of withdrawing from South Africa. This method was adopted by 118 firms and accounted for 35 per cent of the 339 disinvestment operations identified by mid-1988. Some argue that the departure of one nation's corporations simply permits transnationals of other nations to replace them. Although 70 per cent of the United States companies that were sold to a third party were sold to South African companies, in 28 cases of sale the third party remains unknown.
analysis: The text appears to be discussing the process of disinvestment by multinational corporations in South Africa and Namibia, particularly in the context of the economic and political situation in the region. The text mentions companies from various countries, including the UK, US, Austria, France, Netherlands, and Switzerland, and discusses different methods of disinvestment, such as partial sales, mergers, and sales to local management or third parties.