Editing Asset stripping (section)

==History==
Early innovators of asset stripping were [[Carl Icahn]], [[Victor Posner]], and [[Nelson Peltz]];<ref>{{cite book|last1=Stevens|first1=Mark|title=King Icahn|date=May 2014|publisher=Createspace|page=4}}</ref> all of whom were investors in the 1970s and 1980s. Carl Icahn performed one of the most notorious and hostile takeovers when he acquired [[Trans World Airlines]] in 1985. Icahn stripped TWA of its assets, selling them individually to repay the debt assimilated during the takeover. This particular corporate raid formed the idea of selling a company's assets in order to repay debt, and eventually increase the raider's net worth.

One of the biggest corporate raids that failed to materialize was the takeover of [[Gulf Oil]] by [[T. Boone Pickens]]. In 1984, Pickens attempted to acquire Gulf Oil and sell its assets individually to gain net worth. However, the purchase would have had been severely detrimental to [[Chevron Corporation|Chevron]]; a customer of Gulf Oil. Therefore, Chevron stepped-in and [[Merger|merged]] with Gulf Oil for $13.2 billion, which at that time was the biggest merger between two companies.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Mattera|first1=Phillip|title=Chevron: The Big Oil Boys|url=http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1992/04/mm0492_11.html |access-date=30 October 2014}}</ref>

In 2011, [[BC Partners]] acquired [[Phones 4u]] for a fee in the region of £700 million. At this point in time Phones 4u had already entered [[Administration (law)|administration]] and had deep financial struggles. However, this did not prevent BC Partners from taking a £223 million dividend in order to pay off some of its own debts.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Asset-stripping by bosses finished Phones4U|url=http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/39005/Asset-stripping+by+bosses+finished+Phones4U |journal=[[Socialist Worker]]|issue=2421|date=16 September 2014|access-date=30 October 2014}}</ref> Under the ownership of BC Partners, Phones 4u had very little [[Financial independence|financial freedom]] to expand and claim back the contract of EE. In September 2014 [[O2 (United Kingdom)|O2]], [[Vodafone UK|Vodafone]] and [[Hutchison 3G|Three]] decided to withdraw the rights for Phones 4u to sell their products. Due to the already poor financial situation of Phones 4u, the company had no alternative but to sell its individual assets and close down. The net worth of Phones 4u's assets, estimated to exceed £1.4 billion, provided BC Partners with the credit to pay off some of its debts and significantly improve its net worth.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Partington|first1=Adam|title=Ex-Phones 4U employee: How the retailer fell down around our ears, and BC Partners forgot to say goodbye |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/business/markets/exphones-4u-employee-how-the-retailer-fell-down-around-our-ears-and-bc-partners-forgot-to-say-goodbye-9787723.html |newspaper=[[London Evening Standard]]|access-date=30 October 2014|date=10 October 2014}}</ref>