divestiture

/dɪˈvɛstɪtʃər/

Other forms: divestitures

Divestiture is the act of getting rid of something. In business, companies sometimes use divestiture to scale down and save money, by selling off assets.

If a corporation owns smaller companies that make snack food, clothing, and roller skates, it may decide it's time to save some money through divestiture. Unfortunately, that probably means selling off the roller skate company. To sell or otherwise rid yourself of something is to divest, which comes from a French word meaning "strip of possessions" or "strip of clothing," and the Latin root vestire, "to clothe."

Definitions of divestiture

1. noun

   the sale by a company of a product line or a subsidiary or a division
   type of:

   sale

   a particular instance of selling
2. noun

   an order to an offending party to rid itself of property; it has the purpose of depriving the defendant of the gains of wrongful behavior
   “the court found divestiture to be necessary in preventing a monopoly”

   type of:

   court order

   a writ issued by a court of law requiring a person to do something or to refrain from doing something