War chest

Encyclopedia : W : WA : WAR : War chest

In business, a war chest is a stash of money set aside to deal with unexpected changes in the business environment. The term originates with the medieval practice of having a chest, literally, filled with money to open in time of war.

Companies rarely have a war chest anymore, relying instead on quickly raised debt which costs nothing to carry when you don't need it. This is not always a reasonable substitute, as the debt available to a company typically drops as a result of the same actions that require the war chest to be opened.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.