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Message: [QUOTE="Nehanda, post: 28235, member: 2262"] Companies around the world use mergers and acquisitions as key ways to grow. These businesses join forces by putting together their money, skills, and knowledge. They want to make their operations bigger and help customers get more products and services. Zimbabwe has seen many important merger deals over the past ten years. Experts believe more companies will merge in the future. Most of these deals happened in banking, insurance, and drink businesses. We also saw mergers in hotels, tobacco processing, stores, and gas companies. Experts who study competition laws worry about how mergers might hurt shoppers. R Whish and D Bailey explained this idea in their 2012 book about competition law. They said officials check if mergers will make markets less fair for customers. These officials mainly look at problems between direct competitors. They also check for issues between connected businesses or unrelated companies, but they find these problems less often. Some merger cases show all three types of concerns at once. The rules for East and Southern African markets divide mergers into two main groups: deals between competitors and deals between different types of businesses. Zimbabwe law recognizes three specific kinds of mergers. The Competition Act lists them as vertical, horizontal, and conglomerate mergers. A court case between the Competition Commission and Innscor Africa explained different merger types in detail. The court said horizontal mergers happen when direct competitors join together. For example, Daimler and Chrysler, both car makers, formed this kind of merger when they combined their businesses. Vertical mergers connect companies that already have business relationships. This might mean a supplier joins with a company that buys its products. A tire maker merging with a store that sells those tires shows this type of deal in action. Conglomerate mergers bring together big companies from completely different industries. These businesses serve different customers and have never competed with each other before. They have no previous business ties at all. These mergers let companies branch out into new areas. Sometimes, they gain too much market power and push smaller firms out of business. The Zimbabwe law mentions buying controlling stakes in competitors, customers, or suppliers. It clearly covers vertical and horizontal mergers but says nothing specific about conglomerate mergers. Later, the Supreme Court reviewed the Innscor Africa case and provided clearer definitions. They confirmed that Zimbabwe recognizes three merger types. They explained that vertical mergers join companies with existing business relationships, like when customers merge with their suppliers. Horizontal mergers combine direct competitors in the same field. Conglomerate mergers unite companies from totally different industries that serve completely separate groups of customers. [/QUOTE]

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