Combination

Like a marriage for corporations (stretching the metaphor a bit: moving in together would be a jointly-owned collaboration, dating would be a strategic partnership, and the Tinder equivalent would be seeing the other company's stock price and saying "Hmmm...there's some value there").

A combination, or merger, occurs when two companies agree to become one. The structure of the get-together can vary from deal to deal. In some cases, a large company takes over a smaller company. This is typically called an acquisition. In other cases, two relatively similar-sized companies decide to combine. This is generally called a merger, though it is sometimes specified as "a merger of equals" if the organizations are of roughly equal valuation.

These deals are often conducted as a stock swap, meaning that the shareholders of the separate companies become shareholders in the new, bigger firm.