Generally, the purchase or sale of a business will be structured either as an acquisition or as a merger. Acquisitions can be asset purchases, where the buyer purchases the seller's assets, free and clear of any liabilities, or stock purchases, where the buyer purchases the business's stock and actually takes over the business, instead of just buying the merchandise. A merger, or the "marriage" of two business, shares many characteristics of an asset purchase and a stock purchase, but at the end of the transaction the two businesses are combined as one.
