Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)
M&A consists of the two words mergers and acquisitions and describes all activities around the takeovers, mergers, cooperations, etc. of a company.
Mergers
In the case of a merger, two companies merge completely, so that in the end only one - possibly completely new - company remains. Reasons for such mergers include not only increasing the market share, but also reducing risks, buying up competitors or cutting costs per piece by increasing sales.
A famous example of such a corporate merger in Germany is the one between the long-distance bus providers "MeinFernbus" and "Flixbus", which henceforth operate under the name "Flixbus GmbH".
Acquisitions
Unlike a corporate merger that runs on a voluntary basis, corporate acquisitions can often be hostile takeovers. This usually happens when one company is significantly larger than the acquired one. Often the companies do not merge with each other, but remain - at least by name - independent. Again, the goal is to strengthen your own market position by buying the competitor. A suitable recent past example would be the acquisition of the seed manufacturer Monsanto by Bayer AG.
A special form of company takeover can be found at listed companies. In this case, the company that wants to buy the other one must buy their shares. However, in order to make a company unable to take action in a hostile takeover, it is in some cases sufficient to own over 25% of the company's shares.