The Urge to Merge

OR is it the urge to splurge? What a field day Cole Porter and his lyric-writing peers would have had with the latest round in the on-and-off history of big business mergers. Birds do it. Bees do it. First Fidelity and First Union did it. (They'll certainly be true to each other, darling, in their fashion.) Chase was chaste, until it was chased. Then suddenly it found Chemical's chemistry irresistible. That old black Magic Kingdom has Warren Buffet, Tom Murphy, and ABC in its spell. (No wonder - the dowry's $8 billion.) Mating bees buzz. Owls hoot. Western railroads just go on a toot. Even pharmaceutical giants, drugged with love, are worried they'll be late to mate. Somehow, though, the most touching scene of all features Jane Fonda, already merged with Ted Turner, picking up Time Warner's Gerald Levin at a Montana airport to start the biggest merger in all of medialand. Fonda - now there's a name Cole Porter could have run with.

You've read 3 of 3 free articles. Subscribe to continue.
QR Code to The Urge to Merge
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/1995/0912/12204.html
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe
CSM logo

Why is Christian Science in our name?

Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that.

The Church publishes the Monitor because it sees good journalism as vital to progress in the world. Since 1908, we’ve aimed “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind,” as our founder, Mary Baker Eddy, put it.

Here, you’ll find award-winning journalism not driven by commercial influences – a news organization that takes seriously its mission to uplift the world by seeking solutions and finding reasons for credible hope.

Explore values journalism About us