Professor Jaap Koelewijn’s quote is telling, pointing out that a number of multinationals may be reaching the end of their company life-cycle. The financial press reports that an increasing number of hedge funds put heavy pressure on those boards of management to divest and/or to split up their companies to meet shareholder value. Management’s answer throughout 2017 has typically been to make ‘unrealistic’ promises that they will somehow succeed in meeting shareholder expectations. In addition, they took the easy and relatively straightforward way forward of cost-cutting and increasing consumer prices.