The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[marthambles]

A conglomerate is a combination of two or more corporations engaged in entirely different businesses together into one corporate structure, usually involving a parent company and several (or many) subsidiaries. Often, a conglomerate is a multi-industry company. Conglomerates are often large and multinational.

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Conglomerate_(company).html

This would certainly seem to support Dew's analysis.