Consolidation

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Consolidation, known in some places as amalgamation, is the action of combining two or more companies into a single new company. Unlike a merger, in a consolidation, none of the originally joining companies survives: in the consolidation process a brand new company is incorporated and all the assets and liabilities of all of the joining companies are transferred to the new entity. At some profound metaphysical level — a place that appeals at a deep, subconscious level, to legal eagles though they don’t understand it and cannot rationalise it, but it manifests itself in them having to describe it, bloody-mindedly — these things are profoundly different. But from a practical point of view — meaning we are excluding tax considerations, needless to say — they are exactly the same.