Indeed, bigness seems to be falling out of fashion, with an average of one spin-off a week being announced in the U.S. so far this year -- involving big names like ITT, Motorola and Marathon Oil seeking to be, well, not-so-big.

This Valentine's Day, for example, Marriott International Inc. announced plans to spin off its timeshare business. Then the next day, Australia's Foster's Group Ltd. said it would shed its wine operations -- showing that the trend is decidedly global.

Remarkably, the six U.S. spin-offs announced through Feb. 24 compare with just four in all of 2010, according to Mergermarket, a mergers-and-acquisitions information service.

The quoted dollar--value totals for these break-up transactions -- which in different forms are described as spin-offs, split-offs, carve-outs, or just plain "de-mergers" -- rarely are meaningful. In part, that's because many deals are viewed as realignments of business units. In ITT's case, for example, with its split into three parts, shareholders get three stock certificates for each one they have now.

In fact, in Mergermarket's tally, the total of $14.81 billion in spin-offs so far this year reflects the value for only one of them: closely-held agricultural giant Cargill Inc.'s spin-off of its stake in fertilizer maker Mosaic Co. Its total for the four spin-offs of 2010: $10.5 billion.