quasi-integration). A company may not want to purchase outright a supplier or distributor, but
it still may want to guarantee access to needed supplies, new products, technologies, or distribution
channels. For example, the pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb purchased
17% of the common stock of ImClone in order to gain access to new drug products being developed
through biotechnology. An example of forward quasi-integration would be a paper
company acquiring part interest in an office products chain in order to guarantee that its products
had access to the distribution channel. Purchasing part interest in another company usually
provides a company with a seat on the other firm’s board of directors, thus guaranteeing
the acquiring firm both information and control. As in the case of Bristol-Myers Squibb and
ImClone, a quasi-integrated firm may later decide to buy the rest of a key supplier that it did
not already own.