0 a situation in which a private company (= one whose shares are not traded on a stock market) buys most of the shares in a public company so that it controls that company and becomes a public company itself. A reverse merger allows a private company to get capital on a stock market without an initial public offering (= making shares available for the first time):
He staved off bankruptcy by engineering a reverse merger with a dormant holding company listed on the Milan stock exchange.
