This merger presumes that from 2002 German companies will not have to pay a capital gains tax when they sell stock. This will allow the selling off of many interconnecting components of the German system of the interprenetration of finance and industrial capital.
This "releases share-holder value" and is the decisive switch to the domination of a pure anglo-saxon type of finance capital dominated economy.
As a merger within one country it is a mild harbinger of the mergers across countries of the Euro currency union which are to come.
Chris Burford
London