Sentence Correction

As its sales of computer products have surpassed those of measuring instrumnets , the company has become increasingly willing to compete for the mass market sales they would in the past have conceded to rivals.

A. Same
B. they would have conceded previously to their rivals.
C. that in the past would have been conceded previously to rivals.
D. it previously would have conceded to rivals in the past.
E. it would in the past have conceded to rivals.

OK OA is E

I agree E is the best among the Lot. But I have 2 doubts here:

1. In non underlined part , possessive pronoun "its" refer to company. Is it acceptable? I mean as per the rules the possessive pronoun can refer to possessive noun only isn't it ? Or the rule is if there is a possessive noun than It has to be followed by possessive pronoun but its OK to use possessive pronoun for a noun subject.

2. As E is a correct option , therefore sentence can be re-written as :

As its sales of computer products have surpassed those of measuring instrumnets , the company has become increasingly willing to compete for the mass market sales it would in the past have conceded to rivals.

Basically sentence comprises of dependent clause "As its sales of computer products have surpassed those of measuring instrumnets " followed by main clause" the company has become increasingly willing to compete for the mass market sale it would in the past have conceded to rivals" .

But don't you guys think that in main clause there are 2 subjects "the company and "it" and 2 verbs "has become " and "would have conceded" . Hence creating a run on sentence.

Please share your thoughts!

Please help guys !!

Thanks heaps!

Cheers
Piyush

the right answer is not necessarily the best one in the world!
so u can always go by POE
"they" is incorrect
"previously" and "in the past" is redundant
that leaves u with E