A few questions about your questions.

1) How widely publicized is the expiration dates? Is it just amongst management and investors? Firm-wide? Public?

The degree to which this information is public will create all sorts of interesting strategic dynamics.

2) Advantages for who? Investors? Management? Employees? Macro economy?

Again, depending on who you are talking about the virtue of expiration dates will likely vary.

In terms of investors, theoretically they could pull more cash out in the short term, but I wonder if it would inhibit investment to begin with. Private Equity, for example, may make a 5-year bet on a business, creating an expiration date for their investment but not the business. But the idea is that the business will live on and someone else (another company, investor, or the market) will want to take ownership and reap a return on their investment. If the business is set to expire in 5 years what kind of a return can one expect?

And why would a firm want simply to open up a market only to leave and let others benefit from their hard work? Maybe if the firm was created by a parent company looking to ‘prepare the ground’, if you will, for later entry? Not sure.

Re: Business expiration dates – What about the possible advantages of this? This could theoretically allow investors to take more cash out of the business in the short-term if that’s something they’re interested in. Also, with the product cycle being what it is, if this business was focused on opening up a new market, five years should be plenty of time to push competitors in. Especially if you look at an industry like consumer electronics, 6 months can make or break a company. So what if they came in with their one good idea, made it happen and then hopped out? (Still just thinking out loud.)