Over the last three years, corporations have spent around $4.8 trillion on acquisitions, buyouts, and mergers in the US alone. Fortune 500 corporations swallow each other up in a rush to
conglomerate. A common misconception is that a company that makes a lot of money is a Mega-Corporation. In point of fact, it is not. A Mega-Corporation is a company that spans in a near
horizontal monopoly of that particular product type.
PepsiCo is probably the largest of the Mega-Corporations, the only thing keeping it from being subject to
antitrust suits would be the fact that it is literally thousands of loosely connected companies with different presidents... they just happen to share the same umbrella. The following six Mega-Corporations are examples of this ever-growing trend. Though none of these lists are complete, they do represent the best known names that have merged together, bought the others, or are allied with. Why did I choose these six? Because between these six, you could concievably get any product imaginable . GE-H is an enormous manufacturing conglomerate. Citigroup is the nations leading financial institution, PepsiCo owns most of the food you eat.
AOL-
Time Warner controls most of the communication via web, TV, or periodicals.
Disney controls most of the content.
AT&T controls most of the connectivity for electronic communication.
General Electric-Honeywell: General
Electric, AlliedSignal, Honeywell,
United Technologies Corporation
Citigroup: Citibank, ExxonMobil,
DaimlerChrysler,
Salomon Smith Barney
PepsiCo: Pepsi-Cola Company, Frito-Lay,
Inc., Wilson Sporting Goods,
Pizza Hut,
Inc,
Taco Bell,
KFC, Mug Root Beer,
Hostess Foods, Walkers Crisps and Smith
Crisps (two UK leading snack food
companies), Smartfood, Gamesa (Mexico's
largest cookie company), Wedel SA (one
of Europe's leading chocolate and
confectionery manufacturers, Ocean
Spray, General Mills,
Aquafina, All
Sport, K.C. Masterpiece Original Brand
Barbecue Sauce,
Starbucks, Citrus Hill,
Lipton Tea, Kraft Foods International,
Maxwell House, Sara Lee Bakery,
MTV,
Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc.,
Cracker
Jack, Tropicana Products, Smith's
Snackfood Company (Australian snack-food
company), Cadbury Schweppes, the
YMCA,
the
YWCA, Empreseas Polar SA
(Venezuela), Tasty Foods, PETsMart,
Office Depot, the Cleveland Browns, the
Saint Louis Bread Co., Marriott
International,
Subway, Orion's Food
Services (brands include Mean Gene's
Burgers and Hot Stuff Pizza), Oberto,
FruitWorks, Yahoo Inc., Bally Total
Fitness, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts,
Whataburger, Galaxy Foods Co., The North
American Coffee Partnership, The Quaker
Oats Company, South Beach Beverage Co.,
Tasali Snack Foods (leading
Saudi-Arabian snack-food company), Tazo,
Hear Music, Barne's & Noble.
AOL-Time Warner: America Online,
CompuServe, Digital City, Digital
Marketing Services,
ICQ, iPlanet
E-Commerce Solutions,
Sun Microsystems
Inc., MapQuest, Moviefone,
Netscape, AOL
Music, Turner Broadcasting, TBS, TNT,
Cartoon Network, Warner Brothers, 20th
Century Fox,
CNN, Turner Classic Movies
(TCM), Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Hawks,
Athlanta Thrashers,
The Goodwill Games,
Court TV, CETV,
Comedy Central, E!, A&E,
HBO,
Cinemax,
Time, Popular Science,
Sports Illustrated, Outdoor Life,
People, Entertainment Weekly, Fortune,
Money, This Old House, Time Life Inc.,
Outdoor Life, Field & Stream, (many many
other magazines), Warner Books, Little
Brown and Company, iPublish.com,
MAD
Magazine, DC Comics, Looney Tunes,
Hanna-Barbara, Castle Rock
Entertainment, New Line Cinema, The
Atlantic Group, Elektra Entertainment
Group Inc., London-Sire Records Inc.,
Rhino Entertainment, Anything with the
name Warner Bros. in it, 143 Records,
Columbia House, Maverick, Music Choice,
RuffNation Records, Strictly Rhythmn
Recods,
Sub Pop Records, Tommy Boy
Records. Disney(?)
Disney:
Walt Disney Studios,
Who Wants
to Be a Millionaire, The Gillette
Company, JCPenny, K-Mart, Tesco, H&M,
Lindex, Donaldson, Prenatal,
Coca Cola
Company, ESPN, Dimension Films, Miramax,
(appears to also be loosely connected to
AOL-Time Warner through joint ownership
of A&E, Fox Network, and E!),
Pixar,
Infoseek, ABC, ToySmart, Dasani. Minute
Maid, POWERaDE, Planet Java, Fanta,
Kapo.
AT&T: Teleport Communications Group
(TCG), Telecommunications Inc. (TCI),
the IBM Global Network, British Telecom,
Newcourt Capital,
Lucent Technologies