Italy: The Supercolossus

The largest merger in Italian history is about to create the country's biggest business (replacing Fiat). The merger is between Montecatini, the huge chemical-minerals complex, and the Edison Group, a private power company that switched to heavy industry in order to survive when Italy nationalized power in 1962. The resulting giant, which Italians are already calling "the supercolossus," would have united sales of about $1.5 billion, would control 70% of Italy's chemical production and much of its pyrite, potassium, bauxite and glass output. At the news that the government had tentatively approved the merger and that it would shortly...