Lesson 5. Text: Companies’ Restructuring

Text: Companies’ Restructuring

Grammar: Past Perfect Simple

Terms to remember:

Companies’ Restructuring

In the world of business we can often witness changes to the ownership or structure of companies and groups of companies. As a rule companies join with or buy other companies in order to have better control of a particular market, to diversify their business, to strengthen their operations to remain profitable. When two companies combine, usually voluntarily, they merge to form one company in an agreement known as a merger.

To buy another company or to win a controlling share of a company is to acquire a business, make an acquisition or take over a company. There are two types of takeover: a hostile takeover is a situation in which a company is bought out when the owners do not want to sell. Individuals or companies that want to take over other companies are called raiders. A friendly takeover takes place when a company is willingly bought out. When someone wants to buy a company they have to make a bid for it, i.e. offer to buy it at a certain price.

A buyout is the purchase of a company usually by buying the majority of shares, especially by its management or staff.

If a company sells a business, it divests itself of that business. If you pull out of a business activity, you abandon it, perhaps as part of a programme of restructuring: reorganizing a business with the aim of making it more efficient and profitable.

Exercises in Word Study

Ex.1. Form adjectives from the following nouns:

efficiency, profit, aim, price, will, hostility, volunteer, change, control, activity.

Ex.2. Give the English for:

світ бізнесу, зміни в структурі компанії, об’єднуватися добровільно, придбати бізнес, поглинати компанію, власник компанії, купувати (продавати) компанію, відмовлятися від діяльності, залишати бізнес, придбання контрольного пакета акцій, персонал, програма реорганізації бізнесу, прибутковий бізнес, мета.

Ex.3. Match words from list A with words from list B that have a similar meaning:

Ex.4. Find suitable opposites to the following words and phrases:

a friendly takeover, to sell, demerger, inefficient, unprofitable, worse, involuntarily, to lose.