Blog April 2012

Greetings!

The Obama Administration and the Department of Commerce are committed to creating a level playing field so that all American businesses have a fair shot at creating the jobs Americans need and exporting the goods and services the rest of the world demands.  At MBDA that commitment translates into giving minority entrepreneurs the tools and resources they need to succeed and opening up opportunities, often in areas where they have had limited success in the past. Winning federal contracts is a great example.

State of Connecticut Launches STEP UP for Small Businesses

On April 3, 2012, Governor Dan Malloy (D-CT) announced a new program designed to promote job creation by providing incentives to employers that hire unemployed jobseekers.

The Subsidized Training and Employment Program (STEP UP), created as part of a jobs package passed by the state legislature, creates two types of hiring incentives for eligible small businesses. A six month wage subsidy is available to small businesses with fewer than 50 employees who hire those from a community with an employment rate equal to or higher than that of the state (7.7% as of April 2012). Further, such employees must have an adjusted family income equal to or less than 250% of the federal poverty level.

There are five commonly-referred to types of business combinations known as mergers: conglomerate merger, horizontal merger, market extension merger, vertical merger and product extension merger. The term chosen to describe the merger depends on the economic function, purpose of the business transaction and relationship between the merging companies.

Conglomerate

A merger between firms that are involved in totally unrelated business activities. There are two types of conglomerate mergers: pure and mixed. Pure conglomerate mergers involve firms with nothing in common, while mixed conglomerate mergers involve firms that are looking for product extensions or market extensions.

Example

A leading manufacturer of athletic shoes, merges with a soft drink firm. The resulting company is faced with the same competition in each of its two markets after the merger as the individual firms were before the merger. One example of a conglomerate merger was the merger between the Walt Disney Company and the American Broadcasting Company.