Malvenuto and Reutenauer (C. Malvenuto and C. Reutenauer, Duality between quasi-symmetric functions and the Solomon descent algebra, J. Algebra177 (1995), 967–982) showed how the total symmetric group ring ⊕nZΣn could be made into a Hopf algebra with a very nice structure which admitted the Solomon descent algebra as a sub-Hopf algebra. To do this they replaced the group multiplication by a convolution product, thus distancing their structure from the group structure of Σn. In this paper we examine what is possible if we keep to the group multiplication, and we also consider the question for more general families of groups. We show that a Hopf algebra structure is not possible, but cocommutative and non-cocommutative counital bialgebras can be obtained, arising from certain diagrams of group homomorphisms. In the case of the symmetric groups we note that all such structures are weak in the sense that the dual algebras have many zero-divisors, but structures which respect descent sums can be found.