One BIG Company

[poynt99]

It seems to be the trend of this last and the next decade...big companies buying up big companies. How long before there is only one company in each sector of industry?

Texas Instruments is buying National Semiconductor.  

http://www.ti.com/ww/en/acquire/index.shtml

.99

[MileHigh]

It is too big.  It's even a bit scary.  Your feelings are well founded.

I always think of how in the US they broke up the telephone company monopoly in the 1980s and how that spawned innovation.  Companies gobbling up companies seems to stifle innovation.

This should make the lay press because it's really big news.

MileHigh

[Peterae]

Here in  the UK, we have been seeing this for some years now.
B&Q, Homebase, Wickes, Argos, Screwfix these are all large stores where i live and yet they sell similar products are all located on the same industrial estate and have Extremely high prices for the same products, some own parts of the other companies.
All the small shops have been undercut to the point they either fold or get bought out by the larger companies, once the market has little competition they govern the price at which things can be sold.

Here's a really good one that happened a while ago, a company called Screwfix, was once very competitive price wise , family founded and run, then got bought up by B&Q, the prices suddenly increased in line with the larger companies, the founding family made loads of money out of the buyout, but they forgot to put a new start up clause in the contract, the son of the family then started a very similar business called ToolStation which just so happens to be on the same estate and is now a lot cheaper than Screwfix LOL.

So B&Q own Screwfix and Argos and Homebase are owned by the same company, Wickes is owned by Travis Perkins which also have a store down the road.

I had to buy some wooden 6mm dowel plugs

homebase pack of 50 £1.99
b&Q pack of 25 £2.18
wickes pack of 25 £2.03
screwfix pack of 100 £1.74
Tool Station pack of 200 £2.53 LOL

The most annoying thing that happens all the time, infact happened for mother's day, i bought a large potted plant for mum @ £19.95 and it looked really got value for money, went in the day after mothers day and the same plant had been reduced down to half price. Grrrr

It can be so annoying, the times i have bought something even at half price and then seen it even cheaper from the same company a little later, how about all the poor old people that payed full price, it makes my blood boil.

I do wonder how long it will be before the owners of Argos and Homebase closes one brand down, the same for B&Q & Screwfix, Wickes and Travis Perkins, after all they are in effect in competition with themselves.

In the last couple of years we have seen this with car insurance companies as well.
I entered my details into a comparison site, i had a phone call within minuets from a company called Swinton, the quote was high, within another couple of minuets i had another call from a company called Bullseye(Somthing like that), Turns out they were owned by the same underlying company, and when i checked into the top 10 best returned results from the comparison site, most were owned by 1 parent company Grrr, it was not so easy to find this out until a bit of digging was done.

[emerson]

Worked for TI for years. Sold all of my stock when tech stocks were diving. Wish I had kept it.

[giantkiller]

Research ETFs and reverse Exchange Traded Funds. Much safer and more fun. Then put winnings in dividend paying stocks, like wmt and j&j. Let those ride with reinvest dividend selection. Then sit back and enjoy the ride.

[poynt99]

Research ETFs and reverse Exchange Traded Funds. Much safer and more fun. Then put winnings in dividend paying stocks, like wmt and j&j. Let those ride with reinvest dividend selection. Then sit back and enjoy the ride.

GK,

I have no idea what you just said, but it sounds good.

Me with investments, is like Rosemary with electronics; only I don't claim I'm an expert with investments. 

.99

[the_big_m_in_ok]

One BIG Company
« on: 2011-04-05, 02:26:48 »   
Point99 said:
"It seems to be the trend of this last and the next decade...big companies buying up big companies. How long before there is only one company in each sector of industry?

Texas Instruments is buying National Semiconductor. 

http://www.ti.com/ww/en/acquire/index.shtml

.99"

Response:
I've always thought that human greed was such that a group wanted to get someone to become dependent on only one source of anything---whatever is required to survive---and then dictate further terms to the dependents or withdraw support for the dependency in order to reinforce control and then ensure slavery.

What do you think?

--Lee