say what? starbursting

Starbursting is essentially breaking companies up into more profitable pieces and despite me not being familiar with the term until recently, it is apparently seeing a revival at present according to The Economist.

Notable mentions of rumoured or high profile starbursts include Pfizer, Motorola, Fiat and Foster’s.  The Economist cites the main reasons for the revival as:




This trend is much more common in the US and Western Europe with emerging markets seeing the opposite,….hence a popular alternative seems to be diversification.


Whichever path an organisation chooses to take, one thing is for sure, excellent communications will be imperative both with investment audiences but also customers and prospects.  Interesting times for PR.