EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The Recent Experience — 1957–76

Leslie Hannah and John Kay
Additional contact information
Leslie Hannah: Emmanuel College

Chapter 6 in Concentration in Modern Industry, 1977, pp 83-97 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The 1960s saw the most substantial wave of merger activity the British economy had experienced since the 1920s. As Figure 6.1 shows, the annual value of acquisitions increased sharply after the early 1950s, culminating in the spectacular merger wave of 1967–9 which brought together G.E.C., A.E.I. and English Electric; British Motor Corporation and Leyland; created the giant Bass Charrington brewing chain; and generated proposals (subsequently abandoned) for a massive Unilever-Allied Breweries merger to create an industrial giant in the food and drink industries. During recent decades, also, merger has caught the popular imagination as never before. The contested takeover bid, where would-be acquirers appealed directly to shareholders over the heads of a hostile management, was almost unknown before the fifties. It was still very unusual in the fifties and sixties, accounting for only a tiny fraction of all merger activity, but instances of it would generate news headlines for weeks as the battles of I.C.I. to win control of Courtaulds or of G.E.C. to acquire A.E.I. developed.

Keywords: Small Firm; Large Firm; Share Price; Modern Industry; Herfindahl Index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1977
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-02773-6_6

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781349027736

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-02773-6_6

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-04-01
Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-02773-6_6