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This paper paints a textual picture of two old economy firms in Scotland over a five-year period. It offers a longitudinal qualitative analysis into the processes and functions of the firms. The study draws on business development and knowledge transfer literature to provide research frameworks and underpin the analysis. The fundamental aim of the study was to understand how these businesses operate. The results give a narrow but essentially deep insight into important current issues affecting the development of such firms. Small and medium-sized, “old economy” firms, mainly family-owned, represent the vast majority of business organizations in the UK and are particularly vulnerable to economic events, political decisions, policy change and natural disasters. Their ability to adapt and transform will hold the key to economic growth and competitiveness. This paper shows clearly the challenges facing the small or medium-sized “old economy” firms, which are restructuring for growth and development in the 21st Century.

Industrial consolidation is a global trend that evolved during the last three decades. Market liberalisation and privatisation represent initial key transformation processes for this phenomenon in the energy sector. The energy sector moved over to common interest during the last years: The number and volume of international large-scale mergers increased, and new multinational super-utility champions gained momentum (Graeme 2002). For example, the bid for the Spanish Endesa in 2006 included the second largest cash offer with an amount of nearly US$ 66 billion by Eon in history of Mergers and Acquisitions (MA Chandler 1990). This empiric study analyzes the M&A activities in Latin America’s energy market with focus on Argentina, Brazil and Chile. The specific characteristics and motives for utilities’ M&A activities in these three countries serve as a good model how diverse industrial consolidation took place after the liberalisation and privatisation in Latin America during the 90’s. Furthermore, the study provides an analysis about the corporate strategies. The study is structured as follows: After the abstract, the second section gives a brief overview and background information about the objectives and differences in the implementation of the transformation processes in Argentina, Brazil and Chile before privatisation. The third section explains the research methodology of the empiric study. The fourth section illustrates the research findings and results on industrial consolidation in the Latin American markets. The fifth section addresses the conclusions. The final section gives an outlook for further development in those countries.