&gt; &quot;Efficient Market&quot; is only a hypothesis.<p>What? That has nothing to do with it.<p>Why would you pay someone to take something off you? There is no way just owning a public company&#x27;s stock can hurt an investor other than loosing them $. (no liability etc).<p>It is all about tax. Investors understand this.<p>We are just seeing a special case of this:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Conglomerate_discount" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Conglomerate_discount</a>