The people that I’m close to that have had the company they work for be sold or merged with a large conglomerate have always suffered. My experience is anecdotal though. Have any of you been happy that the company you work for has changed in such a way or is it generally just a total crap situation every time?

It will be the best of both worlds refrain. The top management bail with a golden parachute and they bring in a management team that knows nothing. Lots of people lose their jobs. Depends where you are in the organization.

As I've mentioned a few times on this board, I got screwed over by "affirmative action" and decided to only work for small companies that were exempt from legalized discrimination.

Of course, those companies ultimately merged or were bought out by other companies and it was never a good thing for the employees.

So when a merger or buyout was nearing completion, I got a job elsewhere and went on my way before things were ruined.

The second-to-the-last company for which I worked had two main product lines. They sold one of them to a competitor. I was one of those who went with the sale.

It at first looked like my old employer had done me wrong.

Then the 2008 recession hit. New boss was a much better businessman than the old bosses. My new employer made the company survive. My old employer closed their doors for good.

A company I worked for in the 70’s was bought out in 1980. I received a significant bonus for negotiating the sale and a job with the new company managing a New England Division.

Worked my tail off but succeeded. Later recruited to another company for higher pay and higher level of management.

For me, it worked out well.

I think I would have been just as happy if the original company had not been sold - I liked the owners and we worked well together.

Started in 1987 with a family owned company. It was great.
After about 4 years sold to a swedish Co. Then to a German Co.
A lot of BS but they treated us pretty good. Then in 2007
got sold to an American company, they treat us like shit!
Main reason I'm retired today.

Of course some employees have benefitted. It’s pretty easy to find a company that was on the wane and if not bought they would have probably folded. If the employees were kept they benefitted. Now the employees from the buying company probably felt they got screwed. If that growth had happened organically they would have benefitted from increased seniority and benefits probably.

So yes the obvious answer is they exist.

Why does anyone think a company owes it's employees more than paying them for the work they do? They're usually no explicit promise of future employment. And unless explicitly offered (which sometimes it is) there's no equity stake in the company. Employment is at will on both sides.

To the last point employees are free to leave an employer at any time with no penalty. It's nice if they give two weeks notice, but there's no requirement to do so. But everyone gets bent out of shape when companies lay off employees.

In most of cases I've seen, the people at the purchased company are either laid off quickly or 'encouraged' to leave across the next year. This happens so much I've seen discussions of red flags indicating a company may be acquired soon, leading people to jump ship before that happens so they're not part of a mass layoff.

Sometime in the 90's, AT&T Bell Labs was bought out by Lucent Technologies. Many of us received stock options from Lucent when the merger happened. I remember the shares of stock being given at about $20/share and we got 400 shares each (I believe). It was a pretty good game to see how high the stock prices would go!

I sold my shares at $75/per while others speculated it would rise higher. The price per share did reach $80, but quickly dropped to $70 and kept dropping from there.

Yes! I benefitted. My example is not reflective of today's market however.

A company where I worked was bought by Halliburton.

I was in my last semester of my Master's program. The deal when I started was the firm would pay up to $5k per year for tuition, books, and some sundries; I would owe them two years from the date of the most recent reimbursement.

In the program I was in the cost per year for just under the $5k maximum reimbursement.

In the end, my employer paid me nearly $20k to get my Master's and when Halliburton bought them I was relieved of my commitment to work for them (the obligation didn't transfer to Halliburton).

My experience was good all three times. I started with a local homegrown company in 1998. They were bought by a bigger company 1 year later. They were bought about 2 years after that. And then they were bought again about 3 years after that. Each time I believe the new company was better. The last time I earned an opportunity to manage my own building, which I did for about 7 years prior to the last owner shutting our building down.

All in all, I think being bought 3 times in 16.5 years was good each time (each new owner had more money than the last one, and invested.)

Its been know to happen, especially in the tech, biotech or pharma sectors. Private companies can offer employees stock options (also called ISOs, or Incentive Specific Options) that are worth some value (409 valuation) that is calculated once or twice a year and when the stock option grant is issued, thats the price you pay for the "option" to exercise a purchase of a share of company stock.

Its a way of compensating employees who join early in the growth of a company and stay through (and presumably contribute to) that growth period.

When the company sells, the new share price is calculated by sales price of the company divided by number of outstanding shares. So if you had 10,000 shares that you paid 25 cents each for and the company sale ended up with the share price of $1 (sale price of $10,000,000 company with 10,000,000 issued shares), you made net $7,500.

Ive been part of a couple companies that had issued me stock options and did make some money out of them.

CHI is located in a small town near where I grew up. https://www.fool.com/investing...on-sale-of-chi-over/

quote:

Originally posted by maxwayne:
CHI is located in a small town near where I grew up. https://www.fool.com/investing...on-sale-of-chi-over/

That's outstanding.

It's amazing what happens when you take a minute and listen to input from the factory workers and truck drivers who do this all day, every day... Efficiency and profits increase. Who'd have thought?!

I'm glad they're now letting the workers benefit from the increased value.

quote:

Originally posted by remsig:
My experience was good all three times. I started with a local homegrown company in 1998. They were bought by a bigger company 1 year later. They were bought about 2 years after that. And then they were bought again about 3 years after that. Each time I believe the new company was better. The last time I earned an opportunity to manage my own building, which I did for about 7 years prior to the last owner shutting our building down.

All in all, I think being bought 3 times in 16.5 years was good each time (each new owner had more money than the last one, and invested.)

Excellent. Good to know. Of course you don’t live in the trash heap of PA where companies are bought to dump debt into and then go bankrupt.

The company someone i know worked for merged, froze raises and instead changed to year end bonuses which ended up being 7¢ per hour. Then they laid off almost half the people and froze hiring expecting no reduction in production. Then they went with out of state insurance that basically eliminated family coverage by making it unaffordable. Then they merged again but luckily the person got a different job by then but I can’t imagine anything got better.

The company I used to work for sold and while negotiations allowed the employees to work for the new company they all quit because of work conditions.

Thanks for the good stories because they are the first I’ve heard.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
The company I used to work for sold and while negotiations allowed the employees to work for the new company they all quit because of work conditions.

Thanks for the good stories because they are the first I’ve heard.

Hi Mark,

No problem. I know for every good story regarding companies being bought there are probably 5 of the bad version.

I've been fortunate. In 2008, the small company I worked for went to an ESOP. Then we sold the company in 2011 to a group out of Boston. Many of the long time employees made out like bandits (our ESOP values transferred into IRA). In one day, my retirement was fully funded. The Boston company sold us again in 2016 to a group out of Austin.

While my career limitations are of my own doing, I've found both sales to be neutral to me. I continue to do the same stuff I've been doing for 20 years, mainly due to California utilities.

I worked for Norwest Bank from 1975 to 2000 and loved my job. I'd climbed the ladder and thought I had it made. Then, Wells Fargo entered the picture and things went to shit in a big hurry. We were an agricultural bank in Central Montana and we had presidents that knew grain and cattle and those that produced our food.

Right away we end up with a 'president' who was a former HR female that didn't have a clue about farming or ranching. The exodus of good people started immediately thereafter. I lasted a couple of months until I left.

Within a few months, all the talent was gone and about 80% of the quality customers.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
Why does anyone think a company owes it's employees more than paying them for the work they do? They're usually no explicit promise of future employment. And unless explicitly offered (which sometimes it is) there's no equity stake in the company. Employment is at will on both sides.

To the last point employees are free to leave an employer at any time with no penalty. It's nice if they give two weeks notice, but there's no requirement to do so. But everyone gets bent out of shape when companies lay off employees.

Whether you like it or not, what BBMW says is the truth.

My father told me that employees should not have loyalty to a company because a company cannot have loyalty to its employees.

I don't think there is a single answer to the OP's question. I think it very much depends on the situation.

Having been very close to being laid off several times in my career, I recommend that everyone always keep your resume updated and explore everyone opportunity that comes by.

To the OP's question, if the new employer offers you a retention bonus, then it might be to your advantage to stay. If they aren't offering you a retention bonus, then you should probably start looking.