Consortium

Consortium (pronounced or kuhn-sawr-tee-uhm or kuhn-sawr-shee-uhm)

(1) A combination of financial institutions etc, for carrying into effect some financial operation requiring large resources of capital.

(2) Any association, partnership, or union.

(3) In law, the legal right of partners in a marriage to companionship and conjugal intercourse with each other.

(4) In biology, two or more microbial groups living symbiotically; they can be endosymbiotic or ectosymbiotic.

1820–1830: From the Classical Latin consortium (partnership; association; society), derived from consortis & consors (partner), the construct being con- + -sors- + -ium.  Con is from the preposition cum (with; together) +‎ sors (lot; fate) from the Proto-Italic sortis, from Proto-Indo-European ser- (to bind) + -ium, the neuter singular morphological suffix from the Latin –um, based on Latin terms for metals such as ferrum (iron).  It was cognate with serō, seriēs and sermō.  Words (often imprecisely) used as synonyms include conference, group, society, club, company, union, organization, merger, wedding, patent, trust, cartel, holding, ownership, body, league, federation, business, institute & corporation.  Consortium is a noun and consortial an adjective; the noun-plural is either consortia or consortiums (the latter more common in English-speaking countries).  

Although it has technical meanings in law and science, in general use consortium has evolved to apply particularly to aggregations of corporations or individuals for purposes of some commerce.  It can however be used as a generic to apply to any partnership or union although such use has become increasingly rare as the mercantile association tends to dominate.  Other descriptors of aggregations are nuanced (such as federation vis-à-vis confederation) but consortium is an absolute; at law either it is or is not although from the outside, it can be hard to tell.

Consortia or consortiums?

In English there are neither rules nor even established conventions which decide whether original Latin plurals or manufactured English inventions are preferred but popular use has produced several practices.  Firstly there are words where either may be used but, because the classical forms are now rare, they should probably be avoided unless there’s some compelling case for their adoption (such as historical, technical or legal writing) but, whichever is chosen, that style should consistently be applied.  Then there are words which really demand the Latin plural be properly used because (1) it’s not possible to invent a pleasing Modern English form and (2) the originals tend to be better known so incorrect use can make for a jarring read.  Those often used interchangeably as both singular and plural include criteria and phenomena, the singular forms being criterion and phenomenon.  

Finally (3), there are words which have been not merely assimilated, but been wholly absorbed to become English.  Data is now an English word which is both singular and plural for all except for pedants and a handful of nerds for whom the distinction between data (plural) and datum (singular) is important.  Agenda, which once was plural, is now so established as a singular that the classical agendum is, if not extinct, is certainly archaic and perhaps obsolete; agendas is the accepted plural.  One great advantage of preferring English plural formations is that the rules are simple.  Classical Latin has a complex system of endings in which there are five categories or declensions of nouns, adjectives, and pronouns (some with sub-categories).  The earlier Ancient Greek had a simpler system, but one still more complicated than that of English.

When describing business structures, the terms consortium & conglomerate are often used interchangeably although technically they’re quite different.  The confusion arises because to the casual observer (certainly the customer and probably not a few shareholders), they can from the outside look the same and some regulatory systems are so opaque it can take an expert to wade through a labyrinth of trusts and registrations to work out just how some of the more elaborate structures should be described.  Famously, the South Korean 재벌(chaebols (literally “financial cartel” or “rich family” or “financial clique”)), although usually regarded as conglomerates appear in at least part of their operations to function sometimes as a consortium (or even a number of parallel consortiums) but whether such arrangements are ad hoc or a permanent convenience can be difficult to determine.  With the chaebols, it’s no easy task to determine where one state ends and another begins.

A consortium is a group of independent organizations or individuals which join forces to collaborate on a specific project or objective (which can be a one-off, a time-limited agreement or permanent). In a consortium, each member retains their independence and autonomy, but all work together towards common goals.  Typically consortiums involve technology (such as the LIM (Lotus-Intel-Microsoft) which was formed to develop specifications for EMS (Expanded Memory Specification) & XMS (Extended Memory Specification) computer RAM (random access memory)), manufacturing (such as PRV (Peugeot-Renault-Volvo) which collaborated on a V6 engine few admired)) & education (such as the G8, the eight “old” Australian universities (sort of the equivalent of the US Ivy League) which formed an ongoing alliance to try to maximize their share of the nation’s research funding).  Consortium arrangements can be formal or informal and most exist to permit projects of common interest to be completed more quickly and avoid duplications of effort.

In business, a conglomerate is a corporation composed of multiple diverse and often unrelated businesses operating in various sectors.  The typical structure is to have a holding company which holds a controlling interest in several subsidiary companies, each of which operates with at least some degree of independence and such is the nature of international tax law that each may be registered in a place different from where their commercial activities are physically transacted.  Conglomerates may be planned or can grow organically through M&A (mergers and acquisitions) or from splitting up existing structures, either for some commercial or tax advantage or if ordered by regulators.  There can be real advantages in the conglomerate model because diversification can mean the structure can withstand downturns in one sector of the economy because of participation where demand remains strong.  Classic conglomerates include General Electric (GE) with fingers in pies like energy, aviation & healthcare and Berkshire Hathaway, which controls a portfolio in industries as diverse as insurance, finance, retail & manufacturing.

Lindsay Lohan, JFK Airport, New York, December 2011.

French-based LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) is a conglomerate formed in 1987 through the merger of Louis Vuitton & Moët Hennessy and as well as the eponymous names their portfolio now includes over seventy “luxury” brands including Dior, Fendi, Givenchy, and Bulgari.  LVMH technically is thus a holding company but does from time to time enter into consortium arrangements to collaborate on projects (which in some cases have become acquisitions and therefore part of the conglomerate).