disinvest

From dis- +‎ invest.

disinvest (third-person singular simple present disinvests, present participle disinvesting, simple past and past participle disinvested)

1. (transitive, also figurative) To reduce investment, or cease to invest.

   Antonym: invest

   • 2009 January 16, Kate Zernike, “Students Covering Bigger Share of Costs of College”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     “The institutions whose primary mission is teaching — the masters and community colleges and bachelors colleges, are slowly disinvesting in the teaching function,” Ms. Wellman said.

   • 2013, David A. Aaker, Three Threats to Brand Relevance: Strategies That Work, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:

     If none of the first four response strategies is attractive or even feasible, the remaining alternative is to disinvest—that is, to withhold or withdraw resources from the business or to exit. This strategy involves shifting investments from a declining […]

• This verb is weaker than the related divest, which instead means "sell off existing investments", rather than "reduce or cease new investment".

• divest