Re: a company splitting part of itself off is doing something good
"business analysts, financial market "experts" etcetera all believe that a company splitting part of itself off is doing something good"
Goldman Sachs are the financial advisors to HPE on this deal [0]. They don't have to believe anything except they'll make money somehow. Goldman Sachs (the outfit that called its customers "muppets" [1]) is the company that a decade and a half ago told the EU that Greece was financially stable enough to join the Euro [2]. The consequences are still rattling around even this week - another 10bn euro loan tranche, in what looks very much like what the TV adverts from Wonga etc used to never quite call a "debt consolidation" exercise, which just kicks the ball further down the road.
In a more general picture, the M&A (mergers and acquisitions) specialists in the big beancounting companies have come to the end of the M&A road, they've merged pretty much every big outfit they can, and in recent years they've had to go into reverse and start de-merging things just to keep the M&A business revenue stream flowing. In line with the company's policy of continuous product and service improvement, as always. And worsening employment conditions at the sharp end. As always. The Board will be OK though.
Does this kind of thing happen on the same scale in (say) Germany, a country with a relatively stable relatively succesful (before the Greek loans) economy?
[0] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-hewlett-packard-divestiture-csc-idUSKCN0YF2PV
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html?_r=0 (other financial advisers are available)
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/entries/fba91847-2c24-394f-a088-99fbb6973b51 (an episode of Radio 4's usually-excellent More or Less series)