August 14, 2018

In June, the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer paid $63 billion to acquire Monsanto, one of the biggest names in agricultural technology. The idea behind the deal was to merge Bayer’s pesticide business with Monsanto’s dominance in genetically modified crops to create the world’s largest seed and agrochemical company. Along with these valuable assets, however, Bayer also acquired a lot of legal baggage. Over the years, Monsanto has faced thousands of lawsuits from consumer and environmental advocates who claim that the Continue reading

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August 3, 2018

A few months ago, we looked at why our subject for the Chapter 8 profile in Understanding Business was leaving her position as CEO of the Campbell Soup Company. As the video below shows, however, Campbell’s problems began long before Denise Morrison took the top job.

Questions:

  1. Why has Campbell’s struggled to grow steadily in recent years?
  2. What do you think Campbell’s should do to start winning over young consumers who don’t like canned soup?
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June 21, 2018

After a lot of legal wrangling, AT&T and Time Warner recently received permission to proceed with a long-awaited corporate merger. But they aren’t the only media companies looking to combine forces: Disney plans to buy Fox, so long as Comcast doesn’t beat them to the punch. This video takes a look at what these mergers mean for the companies themselves as well as consumers.

Questions:

  1. Why are major media companies starting to join forces through corporate mergers?
  2. How do you Continue reading
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