Drilling Down on Breaking Up

Other peripheral advantages help the parent company. Employee compensation packages are easier to award. For Wall Street analysts, assigning stock-price targets and future multiples becomes clearer. Under the right circumstances, these benefits bring additional upward movement to the stock.

Who's Who

In outright sales, the identity of the buyer makes a difference. Because companies in a similar business can often extract immediate efficiencies from purchased assets, such "strategic buyers" are often willing to pay more. When such a purchaser isn't readily available, sellers are sometimes tempted to lay off assets to professional acquirers such as private equity groups.

"When time is of the essence, because of a need for cash or to placate a raider or hedge funds, selling to one or a group of private equity funds may be the way out, even if the price is somewhat lower," said Enrique Arzac, professor of finance at Columbia Business School.

Private equity has been on a buying binge of late, as financing has become easier and institutional investors have chased returns.

"The super abundance of private equity money is another way of saying that money is cheap," said Bruner, "Private equity companies and hedge funds need to put their money to work. They are calling on large industrial companies with great intensity, and likely offering very attractive prices."

Split the Difference

The private market isn't the only group getting its hands on orphan assets. Public markets also bask in benefits of large companies chipping away at their noncore segments through tongue-twister transactions.

Of the complex transactions, spinoffs and split-offs seem to be the most popular, and companies such as Wendy's(WEN Quote), McDonalds(MCD Quote) and Viacom(VIAB Quote) are making good on these deals. Motives for moving an asset into the public's hands vary as much as the technique, however.