ASSET STRIPPING

'Asset stripping' selling the assets individually at a profit. The term is generally used in a pejorative sense as such activity is not considered productive to the economy. Asset stripping is considered to be a problem in economies such as Russia or China that are making a transition to the market. In these situations, managers of a state-owned company have been known to sell the assets which they control, leaving behind nothing but debts to the state.

"Asset stripping" is also sometimes used to describe the practice of investors dealing directly with armed militant groups in developing nations to take direct control of assets that legally belong to the state or commons or any group in society that the investor and armed militant can effectively coerce. It has led to deforestation in Africa and Colombia and to other harmful effects. Jim Friedman on a United Nations panel on exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo, listed this as one of several key concerns in "investment and human rights".
In anthropology, "asset stripping" can refer to a family which loses wealth when the head of household dies. In many African countries, it is common for the head of household's brothers and sisters to take the house and household goods from a family as opposed to those goods being given to the widow/widower or children.