November 13, 2005

Does going local outperform going global?

Sir, recently, November 9, The Lex Column presented a very interesting value adding exercise with respect to the shares of Altria. It was easy to understand how two such different businesses as Philip Morris (tobacco) and Kraft (food) could benefit from splitting out and being able to play to each of its market but, to hear about value creation from separating PM-USA from PM-International, truly stopped us in our tracks. Is it really so that going local these days outperforms going global?