Industry Consolidation: Not as Simple as it Looks

If prior consolidations were primarily waves of generational or monetary exuberance, today’s are generally defensive. There is a desire for synergystic retrenchment, as businesses combine, eliminate redundancies, cherry-pick equipment and personnel. These mergers do not contain an ingrained desire to create new markets or new opportunities or to ride new waves of demographic, economic, or technological change. They are a search for ways to adapt familiar tools to a confusing marketplace.