Conglomerate

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Conglomerate

A firm engaged in two or more unrelated businesses.

Conglomerate

A corporation that runs and manages many, unrelated businesses. The businesses are in different industries and generally have nothing at all to do with each other in terms of what products are produced. The theory behind a conglomerate states that the individual businesses can be managed at lower cost because they are able to pool resources while also reducing risks inherent to any particular industry. Conglomerates are not as popular in the United States as they once were because some became so complex, they were impossible to operate. See also: Keiretsu, Chaebol.

conglomerate

A company engaged in varied business operations, many of which seem unrelated. A conglomerate is designed to have reduced risk, since its various operations are affected differently by business conditions over time. In addition, it is possible for a conglomerate to redistribute its corporate assets depending on which operations show the most promise. Conglomerates were popular among investors during the 1960s but investors' interest in them faded during the 1970s and the 1980s.

Wall Street Words: An A to Z Guide to Investment Terms for Today's Investor by David L. Scott. Copyright © 2003 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. All rights reserved.

Conglomerate.

A conglomerate is a corporation whose multiple business units operate in different, often unrelated, areas.

A conglomerate is generally formed when one company expands by acquiring other firms, which it brings together under a single management umbrella.

In some, but not all, cases, the formerly independent elements of the conglomerate retain their brand identities, though they are responsible to the conglomerate's management.

Some conglomerates are successful, with different parts of the whole contributing the lion's share of the profits in different phases of the economic cycle, offsetting weaker performance by other units.

Other conglomerates are never able to meld the parts into a functioning whole. In those cases, the parent company may sell or spin off various divisions into new independent companies.