Indeed, Citigroup's recent decision to spin off its property and casualty business suggests that the benefits of combining commercial banking and the full range of insurance activities may be less than initially anticipated. Still, the concept of the financial conglomerate has received a great deal of attention in recent years because of the diminishing distinctions across financial services firms.
It is useful to recall that the retail financial industry went through a phase of conglomeration about twenty years ago in the movement toward the "financial supermarket." The acquisitions of Coldwell Banker and Dean Witter by Sears, Shearson by American Express, Schwab by Bank of America, and Bache by Prudential come to mind.