We model an industry where a subset of firms is interlinked via a mutual and symmetric share exchange agreement. We show that a merger aiming at acquisition of market power can be reproduced by the same firms under a symmetric cross-ownership scheme. Both concentration and market power indices increase due to cross-ownership. Under linear demand, a non-controlling symmetric cross-ownership scheme is always advantageous to each members if at least (2-√2)(1+n) firms in an n-firm industry participate. The threshold may even drop to (1+n)/2 for relatively low levels of cross-ownership. Last, we show that cross-ownership schemes require fewer participants than mergers to be advantageous and can always be more profitable than mergers, unless a merger involves more that 88% of industry firms.