What big tech and buy-out barons have in common with GE

hardly be less fashionable. The diversified industrial empires of old are taught as case-studies in underperformance, misaligned management incentives and poor capital allocation. Bosses fear that a “conglomerate discount”—the difference between the market value of a firm and the hypothetical value of its constituent parts—will invite activist investors to agitate for divestments. Focus is now the idée fixe of industrial organisation.Few were surprised when General Electric (), a poster-child for expansion-induced destruction of shareholder wealth, announced plans to break in three in November 2021. This unravelling, which is likely to be completed in 2024, is far from novel. Johnson & Johnson, 3 and Kellogg are all in the middle of breaking up. Germany’s Thyssenkrupp and Siemens have both recently completed hulking divestitures. Toshiba, a Japanese industrial giant, narrowly avoided a breakup earlier this year. The conglomerate has proved more resilient in the developing world. But even there some empires are under attack. In China, for example, , an acquisitive globetrotting group, is hawking off assets in order to tackle its crippling debt pile.