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English
Noun
poison pill (plural poison pills)
- (business) Any strategy designed to produce negative results for an entity carrying out a takeover.
- Synonym: shareholder rights plan
- Hyponym: flip-in
2003, Donald DePamphilis, Mergers, Acquisitions, and Other Restructuring Activities, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 151:The study also concludes that there is no indication that poison pills reduce the chance that a company will become a takeover target. In contrast, if investors viewed the introduction of the poison pill as deterring potential takeover attempts, the effect on shareholder returns would be negative.
2022 April 14, Lauren Hirsch, “What happens next in Musk’s Twitter takeover offer.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:There are reasons Twitter may opt not to do a poison pill. It might be wary of potential criticism that a poison pill is deflecting the concerns of a highly vocal member of its community.
- (politics) A provision in a bill that leads to people who would have supported it opposing it instead.
1996, William J. Clinton, “Remarks on the Legislative Agenda and an Exchange With Reporters”, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, volume 1, page 706:They want to load the bills up with poison pills, measures the Republicans are inserting in the legislation to make sure I will veto it, so they can pretend it's not just the poison pill I'm against but the bill itself.
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see poison, pill.
- Hyponym: suicide pill