Adjacency Expansion
Why move from the core into the next thing over?
Held over settled: 97 records whose verdict is in, from forks between 1957–2025, with 8 still too early to call and counted in neither. This is what happened to the companies on record, not the odds for your decision. The corpus covers decisions documented well enough to verify, which skews toward companies that lasted long enough to be written about.
Mondelez, Microsoft, Richemont, Sears, Baidu, Samsung, Nintendo, Anheuser-Busch InBev and 74 more faced this decision. Below is what was on the table, what each chose, and what it returned.
The record
- 2011
Mondelez
HeldWhether to separate global snacks from North American grocery into two independent companies
Stated reasonThe two halves wanted opposite things from owners; apart, each could be priced for what it actually was
What happenedRead the full analysis →- 2015-07-02 grocery half divested: Kraft Foods Group merged into Kraft Heinz on July 2, 2015
- 2024 net revenue: $36,441 million net revenues in FY2024
- 2024 revenue mix still non-snacks: roughly 6% cheese and grocery, roughly 3% beverages in FY2024
- 2017
Microsoft
Held in partWhether to sell games as monthly subscription access rather than one-time disc purchases
Stated reasonSubscriptions turn lumpy one-time purchases into smooth recurring revenue that compounds as the catalog deepens
What happenedRead the full analysis →- 2025 annual revenue: Game Pass crossed nearly $5 billion in annual revenue for the first time
- 2024-02 subscribers: Last confirmed count was 34 million, then Microsoft stopped reporting
- 2025 hardware revenue: Xbox content and services revenue rose 13% while hardware revenue fell 22%
- 2018
Richemont
ReversedWhether to buy full control of Yoox Net-a-Porter
Stated reasonRichemont bet boldly on digital luxury, treating YNAP as a natural online extension
Committedroughly €2.8 billion for the shares it didn't already own (tender valued the whole of YNAP at €5.3 billion)
What happenedRead the full analysis →- 2023 non-cash charge to 'held for sale': €3.4 billion non-cash charge, group profit crushed to €301 million
- 2024 loss from discontinued operations: €1.5 billion loss from discontinued operations
- 2025 loss including write-down: roughly €1.0 billion loss, including a €954 million write-down
- 1981
Sears
ReversedWhether to press into financial services by acquiring a brokerage and real-estate firm
Stated reasonSears had proven it could bolt a financial product onto its retail customer base, and expected cross-selling synergy
Committed$607 million for Dean Witter and about $179 million for Coldwell Banker (1981 acquisitions)
What happenedRead the full analysis →- 1992-09 shareholder gain on divestiture: the divestiture handed shareholders a further $1.113 billion
- 1993 retail return on sales vs industry median: retail return on sales averaged 49% worse than the industry median over the period Sears owned the financial firms, from 36% worse in 1981
- 1993 retail market position: it had permanently lost its crown as the world's largest retailer
- 2013
Baidu
Held in partShould Baidu expand into AI adjacencies (cloud, robotaxis, chatbots) to replace its declining search-ad engine?
Stated reasonThe old search-ad engine is structurally declining, so new AI revenue lines must grow to carry the company before the cash runs thin.
What happenedRead the full analysis →- 2024 AI Cloud revenue: grew 26% year over year in Q4 2024, reaching RMB 7.1 billion
- 2024 online marketing revenue: fell 7% year over year in Q4 2024
- 2024 Apollo Go ride volume: about 1.1 million rides in Q4 2024, up 36% year over year
- 2015
Samsung
HeldWhether to merge Samsung C&T with Cheil Industries to consolidate family control over the group's apex node
Stated reasonIt was a succession mechanism to consolidate the Lee family's control over the group's apex node and smooth the handover to heir Lee Jae-yong
What happenedRead the full analysis →- 2017 Heir's legal standing: Lee Jae-yong convicted of bribery, embezzlement, and concealment of criminal proceeds; sentenced initially to five years
- 2021 Heir's legal standing: Lee released on parole after sentence reduced to 30 months and 18 months served
- 2022-08 Heir's legal standing: President Yoon Suk Yeol formally pardons Lee
- 2015
Nintendo
Held in partWhether to monetize Nintendo's IP across movies and parks through outside partners rather than only selling hardware
Stated reasonNintendo could extract enormous value from its franchises beyond hardware by licensing them to partners who build the movies and parks
Committed$100 million production cost split 50-50 between Nintendo and Universal (Nintendo's share of the animated feature's production cost)
What happenedRead the full analysis →- 2023 The Super Mario Bros. Movie worldwide gross: grossed $1.36 billion worldwide, returning $559 million in net profit
- 2024 Mobile & IP-related revenue: jumped 81.6% to ¥92.7 billion, credited to the Mario movie
- 2025 Mobile & IP-related revenue: fell 27% to ¥67.6 billion as the movie's revenue faded
- 2015
Anheuser-Busch InBev
HeldHow to finance the SABMiller acquisition: a record bridge loan then swap into long-dated bonds
Stated reasonBuy scale with borrowed money, integrate ruthlessly, throw cash at the debt, and repeat
Committedapproximately £79 billion (SABMiller acquisition value per SEC filing)
What happenedRead the full analysis →- 2023-12-31 net debt: Net debt fell to $67.6 billion at the end of 2023, down from $69.7 billion a year earlier
- 2024 credit ratings: Moody's and S&P upgraded the company — Moody's to A3, S&P to A-
- 2023 North America revenue: North America revenue fell 8.3% to $15 billion and EBITDA dropped 21% to $4.7 billion
- 2018
Novartis
HeldShould Novartis acquire AveXis to enter gene therapy as a repeatable platform, not just a single blockbuster?
Stated reasonA one-time cure exhausts its own market, so the value was the repeatable platform capable of reaching new diseases and patient pools, not the single product.
Committed$8.7 billion (to acquire AveXis, an 88% premium)
What happenedRead the full analysis →- 2021 Zolgensma net sales: peaked at $1.35 billion
- 2025 Zolgensma quarterly sales: fell to roughly $297 million, a 17% year-over-year drop
- 2024-11 pipeline expansion (Kate Therapeutics): acquired Kate Therapeutics in a deal worth up to $1.1 billion
- 2020
Uber
HeldHow to respond when the pandemic collapsed ride demand: reallocate to the existing food-delivery adjacency or not
Stated reasonRides was hit hard by the pandemic, so Uber redirected resources to the already-built delivery adjacency while protecting its balance sheet
What happenedRead the full analysis →- 2021 Delivery segment Adjusted EBITDA: first positive quarter in Q4 2021 at $25 million
- 2020 Delivery segment Adjusted EBITDA: negative $873 million in 2020
- 2020 Mobility vs Delivery revenue: Mobility booked $6.089 billion, Delivery booked $3.904 billion
- 2020
Uber
HeldWhether to buy delivery scale via acquisition rather than wait for volume alone to close the profitability gap
Stated reasonThe route to profitability ran through fewer players sharing the same couriers and customers
Committedapproximately $2.65 billion (all-stock acquisition of Postmates)
What happenedRead the full analysis →- 2021 Delivery revenue: $8.362 billion
- 2023 Delivery revenue: $12.204 billion
- 2024 Uber Eats revenue: roughly $13.7 billion in revenue
- 2021
Stellantis
ReversedWhether to manage the merged carmaker for cost synergies and price, or invest in product and brand
Stated reasonPSA's cost-discipline culture, as accounting acquirer, ran its subtraction playbook to harvest real cash synergies
What happenedRead the full analysis →- 2023 net cash synergies: €8.4 billion in 2023, beating €5 billion steady-state target more than two years ahead of schedule
- 2024 U.S. quarterly sales: plunged 20% year-over-year to 305,294 units, the fifth consecutive quarterly decline
- 2024 net profit: net profit collapsed 70% to €5.5 billion; net revenues fell 17% to €156.9 billion; industrial free cash flow swung to negative €6 billion