The likes of ExxonMobil and many others would relish the chance to pick up choice assets.
The strategic goal is to establish first-mover advantage in a large, latent market by scouting and securing choice assets and limited partnerships.
A buyer of AOL would have to decide whether taking on the rest of the company would be worth getting the advertising business and other choice assets, like the instant-message system.
He has also carved out some choice assets for himself.
He closed stores, laid off employees and, in what will surely be long remembered as the most unseemly element of the saga, carved out some choice assets for himself.
"Gifts of highly appreciated capital assets such as stock and land will remain the first-choice asset for donation during lifetime," says Professor Christopher Hoyt of the University of Missouri Kansas Cityy) law school.
This is odd, given that in the past year, C&W has taken ownership of some of HKF's choicest assets, including multinational accounts and property, and has moved to list the subsidiary's Internet operations.
Leo Kirch, the group's founder, took time to offer his view of Rupert Murdoch, who holds a put option worth euro1.7 billion $1.5 billionn) that he may use as leverage to get his hands on some of Kirch's choicest assets.
In theory privatisation has the scope to restructure the economy, but a fire sale risks letting the choicest assets fall into the hands of cronies who will manipulate regulation to suit themselves.By contrast, the politics of the plan is too timid.
Analysis of functional interactions in this way will inform the choices of asset owners wishing to upgrade their existing systems.
Sure, it would be great if smart choices in asset allocation or purchases of stocks and funds could quickly get us back to break-even.
