The urge to merge

At times these days, there seems to be a frenzy among companies to merge. And they are big mergers, stretching from commodity companies in industries such as oil, chemicals, and metals, to technology firms such as computer and Internet companies. In the past year there have been many big mergers or merger announcements affecting the chemical industry for such companies as British Petroleum and Amoco, Exxon and Mobil, France's Total and Belgium's Fina, the fractious takeover battle between what is nowTotalFina and France's Elf Aquitaine, and, of course, the biggest surprise of all, Dow Chemical's proposed merger with Union Carbide. In industrial gases, there is the proposed acquisition and breakup of the U.K's BOC by Air Products & Chemicals and France's Air Liquide, plus the plans of Germany's Linde to acquire Sweden's AGA. Lately there has been activity in the aluminum industry with the proposed union of Alusuisse Lonza, France's Pechiney, and Canada's Alcan, which, ...