In this week’s USNews.com article on the current resurgence of the corporate merger, Jodie T. Allen quotes Tom as the “naysayer.” Tom’s reaction to last fall’s merger and acquisition fever was a warning that merger is too often “what you do when you run out of other ideas … At best, 50 percent work, and the pessimists say 20 percent.” Tom does praise the “carefully built conglomerates” that benefit both stockholders and consumers, but cites the motivation for agglomeration in one word: “Ego.”
