the.com/takeover
When one company buys another, politely or otherwise, to stop competing and start owning.
means The act of one company acquiring control of another, whether welcomed with champagne or fought off with lawyers.
from A straightforward compound of 'take' and 'over,' doing exactly what it says — first used for literally taking over a job, role, or post. The specific business sense of one company acquiring another emerged in the 20th century as corporate finance developed its own vocabulary of mergers, raids, and hostile bids, borrowing the plain verb phrase because nothing fancier was needed.
- hostile kind
- bypasses the target's board entirely, straight to shareholders
- poison pill
- defense that makes the company suddenly unappetizing to buy
- premium paid
- acquirers usually pay 20 to 40 percent over market price
- word origin
- 1920s British English, before it meant corporate combat