What practice involves buying businesses and selling profitable parts while closing the rest down?

The practice of buying businesses and selling profitable parts while closing the rest down is known as asset stripping. This strategy typically involves acquiring a company primarily for its valuable assets, which may include financial resources, property, or profitable divisions. Once the acquisition is made, the buyer identifies parts of the business that can be sold off for profit. This approach can result in significant gains from the sale of these profitable segments, while the unprofitable portions of the business may be liquidated or shut down.

Asset stripping is often viewed critically as it can lead to job losses and negatively impact the overall business's operational integrity. However, from a purely financial perspective, it can generate immediate cash flow for the new owners.

The other options do not relate to this practice. Critical path analysis is a project management technique used to determine the longest stretch of dependent activities and measure the time required to complete them. Evidence-based decision making refers to making decisions based on empirical data and factual evidence rather than intuition or guesswork. Free float pertains to project timelines and indicates the amount of time an activity can be delayed without affecting subsequent activities or the project's completion date.