(a) General rule.--Except as provided in subsection (b), whenever any corporation has sold, assigned, disposed of and conveyed all or any part of its franchises and all or any part of its property, real, personal and mixed, to any other corporation, and the franchises and property have vested in the vendee corporation, or whenever any corporation has heretofore merged or may hereafter merge with and into or consolidate into a surviving or new corporation, the vendee, surviving or new corporation or its successor corporation shall be deemed to possess as a constituent of its own charter, and not as a direct or indirect acquisition from the vendor or nonsurviving corporation, franchise rights of identical scope and character as those originally acquired by it and any of its predecessors in interest from every vendor or nonsurviving predecessor corporation regardless of the fact, if such is the case, that the franchises of any vendor or nonsurviving predecessor corporation, had they been separately existing, would have theretofore expired of their own limitations. The charter of any vendee, surviving, new or successor corporation to which this section may become applicable and all franchise rights thereof attributable under this section or otherwise to or acquired from any vendor or nonsurviving predecessor corporation shall expire upon the same date, which date shall be the later of the dates on which the charter or the most remotely limited of the franchise rights would otherwise expire, and every renewal, extension or change in the term of existence of the vendee, surviving, new or successor corporation by merger, consolidation or otherwise shall inure to the franchise rights attributable to or acquired from all such vendor or nonsurviving predecessor corporations.

(b) Exception.--This section shall not operate to revive any franchise rights heretofore or hereafter expressly surrendered by the affirmative action of any such vendee, surviving, new or successor corporation.