Roll up, roll up, the corporate car boot sale is continuing apace. Commodities is the special theme for this week’s trade fair—where sellers come to offload unwanted bits and bobs to eager bargain hunters (called a garage or yard sale in the US). BHP Billiton, the Anglo-American mining giant, has popped its trunk alongside oil majors Exxon, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell.

Last time around it was consumer goods: HP decided to spin-off its printer business in October; Phillips switched off its lighting business, while GE—the archetypal conglomerate— offloaded its 100-year-old appliances division to Electrolux.

We highlighted this trend for downsizing in a recent global report on corporate big decision making; although at that stage the trend was only showing in the US. When asked to state the area in which their next big decision would likely be made over the next 12 months, the largest group of US executives went for selling assets, exiting existing markets, or discontinuing products or services. This contrasted with sentiment elsewhere in the world, primarily focussed on growth. Yet where the US leads, the world usually follows.

Much of this second-hand sales activity has to do with tight profit margins. For US executives, the top two motivations for streamlining their organisation are changes to the structure of the industry and pressure on operating costs and margins. In the report we highlight an example from March this year of American Express offloading 50% of its business travel division. Digital technology is allowing companies to make their own bookings and rely less on corporate travel agents, squeezing revenues in an increasingly irrelevant division—prompting a sale despite obvious sentimental value.

Thus, disposals of this of kind should be viewed as a positive step, taken by decisive management (getting rid of an asset is the big decision that is most likely to be delayed, say executives). For the spring-cleaning seller, offloading non-core or non-performing assets can result in renewed focus on the core business. It can also ease external distractions, such as freeing up cash to silence nagging investors. For a bank, shuttering overseas branches in problem countries could mitigate the risk of breaching sanctions or money laundering regulations.

Meanwhile, find the right buyer, inject a little TLC, and a once unloved bit of corporate tat can be suddenly transformed.  Lenovo’s initially baffling desire to buy IBM’s ugly thinkpad line of laptops subsequently transformed it into a global player. It’s recent addition of Motorola’s hot again phone business looks set to send its stock higher still. Fuson, China’s version of GE, is developing a penchant for western trinkets—from Portuguese insurance firms to Club Med.

Besides the Chinese, the only holdouts showing signs of bucking this trend come from technology and telecoms: Apple buying Beats, Google buying Nest and Facebook buying Whatsapp, to name a few. But while this is a sign of healthy balance sheets, there are also creeping signs of an accelerated mid-life crisis.

Betting against Apple, the eldest of the bunch, is like predicting the financial crisis: it’s completely not on, right up until the moment that it is proved right. So here goes. Acquiring Beats is an acknowledgement that it lacks cool. Dabbling in mediocre watches and wandering into handling transactions, way, way beyond its core, has not only coincided with a below par version of its flagship iPhone, but there are also the hidden opportunity costs in the areas where it should be deploying its many talents and resource; namely, TV.

The great sell off is sure to visit these companies at some point, especially now that the likes of Google and Facebook are muddying their hands with more and more hardware, such as Glass and Oculus Rift. Of course, by the time it does hit, the size of their cash mountains will probably see them giving away these businesses for free.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited (EIU) or any other member of The Economist Group. The Economist Group (including the EIU) cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this article or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in the article.