Any amalgamation can be done in two ways. Either through merger by acquisition, whereby a company acquires the assets and liabilities of the other company (ies) in exchange of shares and the acquired company (ies) is (are) dissolved.
Otherwise it can be done through a merger by formation of a new company whereby both assets and liabilities of the company (ies) is (are) taken over by the new company and the existing company (ies) is(are) dissolved.
One has to assess whether the method qualifies for the short process or the long one. To qualify for the short process, the company taking over the other company (ies) has to hold at least 90% or more of its(their) voting shares. If it holds 100% of its voting shares, then the amalgamation procedure and accordingly the time frame will be shortened further. In fact, in such a case the amalgamation would then take effect after the expiry of 3 months from the publication of the notice of amalgamation.
In case where a company does not have a shareholding in the acquiring company (ies) or it only has a minority shareholding, then this entails the long process which normally takes around nine months to complete.