LTStraipsnyje analizuojamos problemos, su kuriomis šiandien susiduria Lietuvos ir ES tekstilės pramonė. Kaip vienas galimų sprendimo būdų siūlomos tekstilės įmonių tarpusavio susijungimo alternatyvos, šių alternatyvų vertinimas, remiantis įvairiais kriterijais.
ENTextile industry is considered to be as one of the main traditional industries in European Union (EU) and in the whole world as well. Textile industry is important due to its part in creating manufacturing products, country export, number of employees, working in this sector, taxes paid to the state budget. Of late years, Lithuanian textile companies, as well as the companies in Europe, faced difficulties, which were due to insufficient demand on the production manufactured, notably strong competition from Asian countries, increasing production costs, constantly decreasing turnover. As one possible solution from the current situation could be mergers and acquisition of textile companies. Mergers and acquisitions are becoming more and more important in today's business environment, often times ensuring company's successful activity. Companies' mergers and acquisitions differ in particular sectors as everything depends on industry specifity, market, financial and other conditions. The latter period indicates increase in the number of companies' mergers and acquisitions and it is forecasted that year 2006 could become a new, 6th wave of mergers and acquisitions. Many different authors (Marcei, 2004, 2005; Lakin, 2004; Nordas, 2004; Ohonu, 2006 and others.) analyze the problems which textile companies are facing at the moment, yet they do not research the application of mergers and acquisitions in textile industry as the possibility to solve these problems. The object of this research is to evaluate whether mergers and acquisitions could be realized in Lithuanian textile market, seeking to solve the current problems it is facing.The research is executed analyzing one of the largest Lithuanian textile company named Wool Company Drobe. The company was selected due to the following reasons. Firstly, it represents typical Lithuanian and European textile company - it is a large company (evaluating number of employees working, amount of the productions exported), very important to the country's manufacturing industry, including textile and having its old manufacturing traditions. Secondly, Wool Company Drobe is facing the same problems as other European textile companies. Evaluation of mergers in respect of this company could indicate the typical results which could be obtained while performing this type of transactions in textile industry. While performing the possibilities of mergers and acquisitions in textile industry there were analyzed 3 potential companies mergers: a merger between European and Lithuanian textile companies, European and Asian textile companies and 2 Lithuanian companies, (i.e. similar, identical and different environment) In this research it was referred to the main motives of mergers and acquisitions also the criterions for successful and unsuccessful transactions of this type. The main criterions analyzing 3 possible alternatives were the following: the size of the companies intended to perform a merger, the volume of the production, its change after merger, change in the size of fixed costs after the merger, the strategy of the company, company's pursuance to its main goals, cultural aspect of 2 companies performing a merger, maintaining the manufacturing type of the company after such type of transaction (in this research it is evaluated in respect of Wool Company Drobe).Summarizing the results obtained, evaluation is presented - in which way mergers and acquisitions could be beneficial in respect of 2 main criterions - i.e. a possibility to reduce the costs after the merger and to increase the share of the market (in such way to compensate the decrease in demand on textile production). Estimating the results obtained, some tendencies could be noted - i.e. in the case of Lithuanian and European textile companies merger, this transactions seems to be more successful comparing to the merger of Lithuanian and Asian textile companies. As the research indicated, almost in all the cases there comes an opportunity to increase the share of the market (except the case of 2 Lithuanian textile companies merger) and reduce in incurred costs due to effective use of resources. The analysis of the company's mergers and acquisitions indicates, that this type of transactions could be the necessary instrument to solve the current problems textile industry is facing and improve the situation. Different alternatives presented indicates the main trends which could be analyzed in more depth by textile companies (i.e. what type of mergers could be performed, etc.). However, for more precise results, more detailed analysis should be performed, performing the financial analysis of the companies as well.