An essentially diversifying merger, designed to assemble businesses in different sectors together in a single group, aspiring to use their different business cycles to offset one another. Conglomerate mergers were fashionable in the 1960s and 1970s, but most proved unsuccessful and the conglomerates were subsequently broken up. Conglomerate mergers are usually classed by merger authorities with vertical mergers for economic purposes. See also; horizontal merger, vertical merger, consolidative merger, complementary merger, and expansive merger.