The most common way of joining businesses is through mergers. A merger occurs when one company absorbsanother. In a merger, the absorbed company is often forced to abandon its identity.
In the 1980s, the number of mergers increased dramatically. Between 1980 and 1985, more than 60of the top 500 corporationsin the United States merged with other companies. Multibillion-dollar corporate mergersin the mid-1980s included Nestie's acquisitionof Carnation, Capital Cities Communications' acquisition of the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and General Motors' acquisition of Hughes Aircraft Company. In 1985 alone, more than 3.000 mergers and acquisitions occurred.
Three types of business mergers take place — horizontal combinations, vertical combinations,and conglomerate combinations.
Horizontal Combinations
A merger between two or more companies that produce the same good or service or dominate one phase of the production of a good is a horizontal combination. The Standard Oil Company provides a classic example of a horizontal combination. In the 1870s, John D. Rockefeller and his associates formed the Standard Oil Company of Ohio.
Over the next 12 years, Rockefellers group purchased refineriesthroughout the United States. By 1882, Standard Oil controlled almost all of the country's oil industry. The Standard Oil Trust was formed in 1882 to unify the management of the various companies under Standard Oil's control. In the same year Standard Oil of New Jersey was chartered as one of the companies within the trust.
Vertical Combinations
A merger between two or more companies that are involved in different phases of the production of the same good or service is a vertical combination.The founding in the United States Steel Corporation in 1901 combined companies involved in different phases of the production and distribution of steel. The combined companies owned ore deposits, ironmines, coalmines, shipping companies, railroads, and steel mills.United States Steel's founder, J.Pierpont Morgan, built the world's first billion-dollar corporation through the merging of these varied companies.