As the 20th century draws to a close, 1990s may well be remembered as the Decade of the Merger. Never have there been so many major corporate turnovers and takeovers. And with Exxon taking over Mobil (thumbing their executive noses at the federal anti-trust suit which broke up their progenitor, Standard Oil), bigger is evidently better where Wall Street is concerned. Some, like the Daimler-Benz/Chrysler merger make a certain amount of sense. Others...well, corporate greed can make for some pretty strange bedfellows. Witness the legendary RJ Reynolds Tobacco/Nabisco deal, or the recent attempt to merge Volkswagen and Rolls Royce. (Would that make the Fab Four's Rolls the Beatles' Beetle?)
It's been said that eventually there will only be one bank, two automakers, three or so oil companies, and perhaps a half-dozen airlines. At the rate things are going, that may be a little optimistic. If the urge to merge continues, we could well see pairings such as these:
Fairchild Electronics, Honeywell Computer, Childcraft Industries -- Fairwell Honeychild
Polygram Records, Warner Brothers, Keebler -- Poly-Warner-Cracker
W.R. Grace buys Fuller Brush and Mary Kay, merges with Hale Business Systems -- Hale Mary Fuller Grace
Yahoo and Netscape -- Net'n'Yahoo (but they'd have to relocate to Tel Aviv)
3M & Goodyear -- mmmGood
John Deere & Abitibi-Price -- Deere Abi
Honeywell, Imasco and Home Oil -- Honey, I'm Home
Denison Mines and Alliance and Metal Mining -- Mine, All Mine
3M and JC Penney and Canadian Opera Company -- 3-Penney Opera
Grey Poupon and Dockers division of Levi Strauss -- Poupon Pants
Knott's Berry Farm and National Organization of Women -- Knott NOW
Crabtree & Evelyn plus Apple Computer -- Crab Apple
Swissair and Cheseborough-Ponds -- Swiss-Cheese
Aunt Jemima Brands and Beatrice Foods--Aunt Bea
Coldwell Banker, Ford Motor Company and Phillip Morris, Inc.--Col-For Phillip Morris
Zippo Manufacturing, Audi, Dofasco and Dakota Mining -- Zip Audi Do Da
British Telecom, online publishing venture with Toys R Us, D and Inc. Magazines -- D British R.com, Inc.
Justin Boot Company and Case Knives -- Justin Case
Bill Gates' private acquisition of Heil Equipment -- The Gates of Heil
Total Petroleum and Johnson Controls -- Total Control
ICEE-USA and BMW -- ICEE-BM
Microsoft and McDonalds Restaurants -- McRosoft
--and--
Should the U.S. government lose its anti-trust suit against Microsoft -- Washington, NT.
(Note: This list isn't particularly original. Some were gleaned from the 'net. Others, have been kicked around the office over the past ten years, or so. I am firmly convinced that the world's problems could be solved in 15 minutes...as long as it was done over coffee. Let's face it, the daily grind gets dull occasionally, and some of us have little interest in either gossip or Fantasy Football.)
© Russ Brown, 1999