demergern.

1948 Sunday Times 27 June 1/5 As from next Wednesday the oil and petrol pool, which has operated since early in the war, will go out of business. But this ‘de-merger’ will not mean that the public will get branded petrol from the garage pumps for a long while to come.

1968 Socialist Leader 21 Sept. 1/4 The Government says that it reserves the right to refer the new G.E.C.-English Electric to the Monopolies Commission... However, it is difficult to see what the Commission could do. A de-merger is, of course, out of the question.

1980 Times 27 Mar. 6/8 The present tax rules can in practice effectively discourage demergers of this kind, by charging the assets of the ‘demerged’ company to advance corporation tax and income tax as distributions.

1980 Economist 28 June 77/1 The government hit on encouraging large firms to ‘demerge’.

1980 N.Y. Times 6 July iii. 7/1 It may be time to ‘demerge’ his company into several smaller concerns.

1981 Times 8 May 25/2 The latest pioneer, Francis Sumner, is also attempting to demerge at a difficult period of the group's history.

1983 Times 26 Mar. 13/3 House of Fraser directors were last night believed to be ready to recommend shareholders to vote against a proposal by Lonrho that it demerge Harrods from the rest of the..group.

1985 Daily Tel. 13 Aug. 12 Hanson Trust might decide to go for Bowater Inc, America's biggest newsprint producer, and the company which was de-merged from its British parent in 1984.

1980 Economist 16 Feb. 75/1 ‘Demerging’ is the code word in Whitehall these days.