Daily Archives: August 10, 2008

Intel (INTC) Deploys Astonishingly Confusing Branding For New Chips

IntelIntel (INTC), which for years has spent hundreds of million of dollars on branding, is launching a new series of chips. The branding plan for these is more complex than the processors themselves. The company has used the "Core" designation of many of its consumer chips for the last several years.

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Posted on: August 10, 2008 – 4:48 pm in Semiconductor,

Famous Brands For Sale, Gone But Not Forgotten (GE)(GM)(XOM)(FDX)

Corporations often start a business that becomes a famous brand, or buy companies that already have highly recognized brand names.  Over time these brands often lose their earnings power.
Corporations who find themselves in this situation have few options other than to sell these operations or to spin them off.

Spin-offs are a standard method employed by companies who need to dump divisions that are performing poorly.  Ownership of these spin offs is passed on to the unfortunate shareholders of the parent company, leaving the shareholders with the gift of ownership of a business that often has little valueGe_large.

Under some circumstances corporate boards make a decision to sell branded businesses which have retained much of their value but are no longer a good fit for the evolved core business.
 
Some of the most iconic companies in the world have been cast off by their parent firms. The most recent highly-visible example is GE’s (GE) plans to wash its hands of its industrial and appliance divisions which include the toaster oven and washer-dryer products which have made GE a household name since the 1950s.

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Posted on: August 10, 2008 – 1:37 pm in Mergers and Buy Outs, , , , , , ,