AMALGAMATION. The term amalgamation, in its indus trial sense, is one of a number of terms used to denote the process whereby previously independent and probably competing busi ness concerns join forces and become a single concern conducted under a unified financial and industrial control. Amalgamation is usually spoken of as taking place between two firms only, and it is usually implied that the two previously independent establish ments will continue, after the amalgamation, their outwardly separate existence. The four main methods of carrying out an amalgamation are : — (a) One of the two companies purchases the whole or a con trolling part of the share capital of the other company; (b) A new company is formed to purchase the whole or a con trolling part of the share capitals of both companies; (c) One company purchases outright the other's business; and (d) A new company is formed to purchase outright both busi nesses.
Amalgamation is a particular form of that movement towards combination and centralization in industry which has been an increasingly prominent feature of industrial development in all the principal industrial countries since the 19th century. (See