merchandising conglomerate

Johnson belched sulphur-flame and gave that merchandising conglomerate very hell as he ordered volley after volley to be fired into it.

Their obsessive concern with durability governed nearly every stage of the Company's evolution from a one-fort trading operation on Hudson Bay to its modern incarnation as a $5-billion merchandising conglomerate.

In 1969, when sales had risen to more than $62 million, Mr. Marcus sold the company to the merchandising conglomerate Carter Hawley Hale Stores for stock then worth almost $40 million.