Mergers: From Food to Films

"I suppose," says Nathan Cummings, "that there isn't a week that goes by that I don't look at somebody's business." Cummings, who will turn 70 this fall, is a Canada-born, Chicago-based connoisseur of fine art and fine companies. His Consolidated Foods Corp. (TIME, June 24) has made corporate acquisitions and become a food-industry behemoth, with sales last fiscal year of $830 million. Last week Cummings announced the result of his latest look into somebody else's business. Consolidated agreed on a merger in which, for $140 million in stock, it will acquire United Artists Corp.

Long...