[rurban]

it looks more to me that the key feature is the wording "long term" in their announcement.

if you plan long term strategic shifts, most shareholders will bail out earlier when the quarterly publications once doesn't look too good. which hurts the whole plan.

so if you need to invest long term, it's better to get rid of those short term investors, which can bring everything down. private you don't need to publish your results, that's why most German companies prefer to stay private. they think in 6 year plans, not 1/4th year plans