from the Economist 6:4:63.
Dedicated occupation officials who gave their minds after the war to the intricacies of pruning such industrial overgrowths- “politically dangerous concentrations of economic power" -as Vereinigte Stahlwerke mst have been discouraged had they known hew quickly time would undo mish of their work. Krupp and Mannesmann are two distinguished examples of German industry's will to more than mere survival. And now two of the four chief froups that coalesced into Vereinigte Stahlwerke in 1926 are about to come together again. These are August Thyssen-Huette and Phoenix- RHEINROHR,/‘to whose merger the High Authority of the Huropean coal and steel comminity agreed, “in principle" and on ecrtain conditions, en Maroh 27th. It looks as though the high authority's reservations will havebcen satisficd, and the merger formally completed, by the end of May. The conditions proseribe ccrtain marketing agreements and further capital co-operation in the stecl world = but no longer the regrouping of the conccrn's own capital development, argument over which obstructed the proposed merger two yéars ago at Ioxcmbureg.
With a combined total output in 1962 of 7.1 million tons, the reunited partners now form Burope's largest steel producing concern, and one of the most efficiently equipped and organised. In practice, co-operation between Thyssen and Phoonix-Rheinrohr has for some years been as close as Idixemburg anti-cartel legislation has allowed. The two companies are largely complementary to each other. Phoenix-Rheinrohr specialises in tubes and hcoavy plates, Thyssen in other flats, wire, andspecials. What, in short, is happening in the boardroom is a takcover by Thyssen-Huett of 52 of Phoenix-Rheirohrs equity of DM 276 million, which is controlled by the late Fritz Thyssen's widow. Both she and her daughtor, countess Anita de 4ichy, havo substantial holdings in Thyssen-Huctte.