spin-off

A corporate divestiture in which a division of a company (or a subsidiary) becomes a separate corporate entity altogether. Here's a classic scenario of what happened in the new economy: Stricken with stock envy as shares in dot-coms soared to enormously high levels in 2000, large companies (such as Wal-Mart and Staples) created separate Internet companies that they hoped to take public at equally high valuations. Once the dot-com bubble burst, these corporate entities started laying out the cash to buy these spin-offs back and bring them back into the parent company fold.