The Nancy Reagan defense is a tactic in corporate finance used to counter a takeover or merger bidder who has made a formal bid to shareholders to buy their shares. When the board of directors of the target company meets to consider the bid, they "just say no."
For example, in a discussion of a takeover of the Walt Disney Company by Comcast, analyst Andy Kessler on Wall Street Week stated "there are two great Wall Street defenses. One is the Nancy Reagan defense and the other is the Pac-Man defense, right? And the Nancy Reagan defense is, just say no." The term refers to a catch-phrase coined by former United States First Lady Nancy Reagan advocating abstinence from recreational drug use.
Famous quotes containing the words nancy reagan, nancy, reagan and/or defense:
“I see the first lady as another means to keep a president from becoming isolated.”
—Nancy Reagan (b. 1923)
“...I believed passionately that Communists were a race of horned men who divided their time equally between the burning of Nancy Drew books and the devising of a plan of nuclear attack that would land the largest and most lethal bomb squarely upon the third-grade class of Thomas Jefferson School in Morristown, New Jersey.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“We’re in greater danger today than we were the day after Pearl Harbor. Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“The cliché organizes life; it expropriates people’s identity; it becomes ruler, defense lawyer, judge, and the law.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)