In the law of corporations, a merger is effected when one or more corporations becomes a part of, or merges, with another corporation so that one ceases to exist and the other continues to exist. In a merger, the company that continues to exist retains its name and identity and acquires the assets, liabilities, franchises, and powers of the corporation that ceases to exist. Attorneys who practice in mergers and acquisitions (sometimes called M & A) represent corporations and other business entities in strategizing, negotiating, and carrying out transactions in which two or more companies or corporations combine into a single new entity, a merger, or where one business purchases and absorbs the assets of another, an acquisition.
West Point is a town in White County, Arkansas, United States. David Hamilton, 74, has been mayor "since 1972 except for two years he missed for cancer surgery," according to an article in the Searcy, Arkansas newspaper The Daily Citizen ("Mayors bring politics, leadership to ground level" by Warren Watkins, 27 January 2007). “My great-grandfather landed at West Point in 1865 from a steamboat, and homesteaded 160 acres (0.65 km) of land by building a log house,” Hamilton said. The same article gives the West Point population as 208. Incorporated in 1858, West Point marked its sesquicentennial in 2008. According to local legend, cited by the mayor, the town was in the running with Little Rock to be the site of the state capitol.