Philips Fitness camp

Philips has long been a fat, ungainly beast. But the Dutch conglomerate has been trying to shed some weight. Selling large minority stakes in companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor has helped. The group is now thinking of selling or spinning off its chip division. This dramatic form of liposuction is welcome news for shareholders. Philips chip division is an also-ran. It may be the ninth biggest in the world with estimated 2005 sales of E4.6bn this year. But it only has about 3% of the total ma...