BNET Business Dictionary
Business Definition for: White Elephant
- a product or service that has not sold well, despite large amounts of money being pumped into its development
Wiktionary Definition for: White Elephant
- An albino elephant.
- idiom An ornament etc that is unwanted or is a financial burden; an unprofitable investment.
Additional Resources
- Filtronic: substantial orders for compound semiconductors bring hope to 'white elephant' plant hit by telecoms demise. (Company Profile).
- THERE MAY finally be signs of better times ahead for Filtronic and its compound semiconductor plant in co Durham, which has too often looked like the electronics specialist's pet white elephant. THERE MAY finally be signs of better times ahead for Filtronic and its...
- Research articles 2002-09-27
- `White elephant' resuscitated: a block-square retail complex in Milwaukee becomes an office/hotel/retail development. (Merit Award: 19th Annual Reconstruction Awards).
- For as long as most Milwaukee area residents can recall, a complex of buildings on the south side of Wisconsin Avenue at the Milwaukee River was known as "the white elephant" because of the white paint that covered its upper floor windows. The slumbering giant has now...
- Research articles 2002-10-01
- Post Office puzzle; Crain's asked local architects for suggestions to transform a vacant white elephant into a glittering example of reuse.(Special Report: Commercial Real Estate)
- Byline: MARY ELLEN PODMOLIK The only activity at the 2.5-million-square foot behemoth straddling Congress Parkway is the cars that pass underneath the old Post Office. Designed by Chicago firm Graham Anderson Probst & White, the building wa Byline: MARY ELLEN...
- Research articles 2004-06-28
- OLY:Games creating white elephants says Rogge
- AAP Sports News Australia 08-07-2001 OLY:Games creating white elephants says Rogge By Judith Crosson COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, Aug 6 Reuters - New IOC boss Jacques Rogge claimed Stadium Australia was a "white elephant" forced on...
- Research articles 2001-08-07
- There's life in the old white elephant yet
- SO it's the soft shoe shuffle for Scottish Enterprise. A couple of years ago, the quango was left with a egg on its face after Hyundai mothballed its purpose-built semiconductor plant beside the M90 at Dunfermline. Senior executives at Bothwell Street were forced to coax Hyundai into...
- Research articles 2001-06-17
- Disney gone, developer's quest begins; Tough to find tenant for Buck parcel.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
- The North Michigan Avenue parcel housing the defunct DisneyQuest-a franchise run by the entertainment conglomerate founded on the back of the world's best-known mouse-risks becoming a white elephant. Walt Disney Co.'s decision to pull the plug on i The North Michigan Avenue parcel housing...
- Research articles 2001-07-16
- The Boston Globe Lots & Blocks Column.(Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News)
- Aug. 20--KARP'S HOTELS: With the reopening this summer of the White Elephant hotel on Nantucket, Steve Karp has taken another big step in his evolution from shopping mall mogul to luxury hotel impresario. Aug. 20--KARP'S HOTELS: With the reopening this summer of the White...
- Research articles 2000-08-21
- CVS Looking for Buyers for Revco Headquarters in Twinsburg, Ohio.(Originated from Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio)
- TWINSBURG, Ohio--Sep. 27--Efforts to keep Revco D.S. Inc.'s headquarters from becoming a white elephant in the city's industrial core officially are under way. TWINSBURG, Ohio--Sep. 27--Efforts to keep Revco D.S. Inc.'s headquarters from becoming a white elephant in the city's ...
- Research articles 1997-09-28
- PS chief linked to $50m failure
- ONE of the federal government's top public servants has been accused of having a vested interest in ensuring that Victoria's troubled e-conveyancing system becomes a template for the promised national system. Peter Harris, who is about to take office as secretary of the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital...
- News items 2009-08-21
- NUCLEAR WASTE: CONTESTED BRITISH NUCLEAR SHIPMENT SAILS TO JAPAN.
- Greenpeace, which said the combined cargo of the two ships could be converted into 60 bombs and could be hijacked at sea, delayed the original departure by towing a large floating billboard into harbour overnight. The picture of a white elephant excr Greenpeace, which said the...
- Research articles 1999-07-23
- Westchester Wildfire and CharterAuction.com Team Up For Vacation Giveaway; Season Tix Holders to Compete for Private Jet Flight and Nantucket Weekend
- Sports Editors/Basketball Writers & Columnists WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. & QUINCY, Mass.--BUSINESS WIRE--April 21, 2004 The Westchester Wildfire, the new Westchester County-based USBL team beginning its second season, and CharterAuction.com, the leading luxury private air travel services company, are joining forces to offer season ticket holders the chance to...
- Research articles 2004-04-21
- Tacoma, Wash., Computer System a Source of Payroll Glitches, Problems.
- By Kris Sherman, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 12--White elephant or white knight? Two months into its infancy, the City of Tacoma's new $50 million computer system is a source of payroll glitches, late vendor payments,...
- Research articles 2003-12-12
- Leadership Ltd: White Elephant to Wheelwright
- Business history tells one that leaders don't have to be perfect. But they must recognize that their imperfections, their limitations, for example, will doom them to failure unless they rely on their subordinates and followers to fill in the gaps. As this British academic explains and illustrates, leadership is the...
- White papers 2006-01-01
- Dolphin lovers to pay for 'white elephant'.
- Byline: Eloise Dortch Byline: Eloise Dortch
- Research articles 2006-06-12
- A white elephant tramples Harvard; Burb's tough sell: closed Motorola plant.(News)(cell phone manufacturing and distribution plant shut down)
- Byline: BOB TITA The silence these days at Motorola Inc.'s Harvard plant is broken only by mowers, commandeered by landscapers who continue to cut the lawns surrounding acres of empty parking lots and vacant gray buildings with green glass windows Byline: BOB TITA...
- Research articles 2003-05-05
- Pentagon Wants to Build a White Elephant, According to Amnesty International
- To: National DeskTo: National Desk
- Research articles 2006-11-17
- Packard Bell turns a white elephant into a top performing plant
- Karen Auguston Senior Editor When the Northridge Earthquake struck Southern California at 4:31 a.m. on January 17, 1994, Packard Bell's business was impacted in a way that no one imagined possible. Since it was located only...
- Research articles 1996-10-01
- Great library or huge debacle?
- Egypt is re-creating the "Great Library" of the fourth century - but it's shaping up as a colossal fiasco, writes Thomas Lipscomb in an upcoming issue of American Outlook, the quarterly magazine of the Hudson Institute. The "Bibliotheca Alexandria" plans to begin the third millennium with an expensive collection of...
- Research articles 1998-10-01
- THE 400m pounds WHITE ELEPHANT THE GREAT EURO RIP-OFF; Every month
- FROM a distance it looks like a huge, unfinished gasometer with a ragged-toothed gap where the roof should be. Go closer and the gap turns out to be a roof garden, one of the most exclusive in the world. Inside is a computer-designed future...
- Research articles 2000-01-23
- Study addresses accessories disconnect
- How important is the accessories market? It constituted about $11 billion dollars in retail sales last year according to the Consumer Electronics Association. And in spite of this large number and strong margin/profit potential for retailers, it's also underdeveloped. "Like the proverbial 'white elephant' in the living room, the...
- Research articles 2006-02-27
