By 1906, the year of its 25th anniversary, MG was a steadily growing, prosperous concern, involved in many sectors, and active internationally in trading and engineering technology, in the fields of mining and metallurgy. In the same year, Wilhelm Merton brought about the long-envisaged creation of a separate finance company and a broader financial base for the group through the founding of the Berg- und Metallbank. This was merged with the Metallurgische Gesellschaft in 1910, after it was realized that a precise division between the industrial business and its financing was creating unnecessary duplication of work and was not economically favorable to the group.