[quote=@Spoopy Scary]
<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

This is very cool and helpful information, so thanks for that. The banking seems like a good practice, especially if that banker has a far and wide influence, and would be good for a merchant after they got their career off the ground. But assuming the merchant is already wealthy: wouldn't it also be viable to go around and place investments in small private businesses? To get those businesses what they need and off the ground in exchange for a share of their profits. Going around and doing that for multiple merchants eventually leads to you earning income from all over the place. You hire a guy with a wagon to pick up the cash and some mercenaries to escort him, they come back, pay them, and now you have a pile of currency in your basement. Eventually, especially for viable business ideas, you can buy them out.

A corporation might not work well, because like you said, there's a lack of effective communication. But you can still own plenty of different shops and whatnot, also act as an investor, and monopolize an area of trade in particular regions.
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Well, "Small private business" is more of a modern thing. The modern small business comes from industrialism making things cheap. At this time period, things we would call "Businesses" were mostly owned by wealthy people, and everything else was skilled labor. This is why merchants tended to be the focus of bankers in those days. Off the top of my head, the closest thing to a small business I can think of would be an Inn or a Brothel.

What you are describing is basically normal business practices between individuals, but you are inserting trademark law in there somehow. "Buying out" a Merchant would be buying his stuff and selling it yourself, which would make you just another merchant. You could definitely buy up inns and brothels and ships, that's what a wealthy merchant would do. Ships are the dangerous investment that pays off the most, while inns, stables, and brothels are the rare example of a business that doesn't require specialized labor, though they won't exactly make you super-wealthy. Other things, like blacksmiths or cobblers, wouldn't sell out because their labor set is so specialized they don't have any reason to sell out. They aren't in competition with so many other blacksmiths that they can't make do on their own.