Definition

Noun: 1. A defensive corporate strategy designed to make a company less attractive as a target for a takeover, but which carries a high risk of severely damaging the company itself if enacted. This strategy, a type of "poison pill," involves the target company taking on actions (like taking on massive debt or selling key assets) that would harm the acquirer, but which also pose a significant threat to the target company's own financial health or survival.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • The board adopted a suicide pill defense, threatening to take on enormous debt that would cripple the company if any hostile takeover was attempted.
  • Analysts warned that the proposed suicide pill might scare off not only the acquirer but also the company's own investors.
  • Implementing that suicide pill would be an act of corporate self-destruction.

Advanced Usage

• The term is often used metaphorically outside of strict finance to describe any drastic countermeasure intended to deter an opponent, but which would also cause severe harm to the party employing it.
  • The politician's threat to resign was seen as a suicide pill for his own career.

Variants and Related Words

• Poison pill (n): A broader category of anti-takeover strategies. A "suicide pill" is an extreme form of a poison pill.
• Scorched-earth policy (n): A similar strategic concept of destroying anything that might be useful to an enemy while retreating or defending, often with high cost to oneself.

Synonyms

• Self-defeating defense
• Kamikaze defense

Related Idioms

• To cut off one's nose to spite one's face: This idiom captures the self-destructive spirit of a suicide pill, meaning to harm oneself in the process of trying to harm another.
  • By selling its most profitable division to avoid the takeover, the company essentially cut off its nose to spite its face.

Noun

1. a poison pill with potentially catastrophic implications for the company it is intended to protect