These are large acquisitions, but Embracer Group already owns a lot:

The Group has an extensive catalogue of over 200 owned franchises, such as Saints Row, Goat Simulator, Dead Island, Darksiders, Metro, MX vs ATV, Kingdoms of Amalur, TimeSplitters, Satisfactory, Wreckfest, Insurgency and World War Z amongst many others.

With its head office based in Karlstad, Sweden, Embracer Group has a global presence through its six operative groups: THQ Nordic GmbH, Koch Media GmbH/Deep Silver, Coffee Stain AB, Amplifier Game Invest, Saber Interactive and DECA Games. The Group has 57 internal game development studios and is engaging more than 5,500 employees and contracted employers in more than 40 countries.

Articles about each of the new acquisitions on GamesIndustry.biz:

• Gearbox: Gearbox Entertainment joins Embracer Group in $1.3b deal
• Aspyr: Embracer Group acquires Aspyr Media for $100m
• Easybrain: Embracer Group merges with Easybrain in $640m deal

With the ever-growing stream of acquisitions and mergers, it got me thinking: Why do we permit companies to do this?

What would the harm be in banning this practice? If a company is becomes insolvent, release all of it's IP to the public domain, dissolve all patents/trademarks, and sell off physical assets to pay debtors (first of which should be former employees IMO, but that's a separate discussion).

Edit: I think my original intention of the post to kick off some interesting discussion has worked. Thank you to all current and future posters!