Mergers and acquisitions are one way to make non-performing enterprises productive and profitable. The City of Johannesburg Municipality (CoJ) has gone through a process of merging some of its municipal owned entities (MOEs) in recent years. Taking the case of the merger of the Johannesburg City Parks and Johannesburg Zoo to form a new company called the Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo, this paper draws from secondary sources such as municipal documents and data from interviews with different Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo staff. The findings point to various problems that the merger has created for the Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo that have, as a result, negatively impacted on service delivery functions. The findings further indicate that the problems created by the merger are related to the poor articulation of the merger process; organisational fit; inadequate management of the merger process; political imperativeness; low sta