Anyone else ever learned the company you work for is actively seeking buyers?

Last year. Bought by a competitor.

I was offered a severance or keep my job. I was told nothing was going to change. That was a lie. I should have taken the severance because within 6 months I hated everything about my job that I once loved.

I found a new job within a year, so it worked out, but I still could have found another job and had a nice severance with it.

I've been through this a few times and the outcome varies. Sometimes it gets better but even then the process is usually rocky during the transition. It really comes down to your role in the current company and if / how you fit into the new org but it's common to have big cuts to staff as many are duplicated. Worst case scenario I've seen was the new owners had everyone re-apply for their current jobs as if they were starting from scratch complete with interviews.

Yes. Take the package if offered. Very rarely do things improve. With PE it might seem exciting for about a year, but it will suck eventually.

Just remember whatever the owners / management over your head tell you is a lie.

If you are on the boards or are a VP or someone with a stake in the business, that would be different.

They are selling and sugarcoating whatever they have to so they can keep people from jumping ship before the deal goes through.

I have seen a manager have to lay off half his people after telling them for months not to worry and everything would be fine from what the VPs were telling him. After he was tasked with doing the actual deed of walking colleagues to their cars all day, he was then laid off and his boss walked him to the car.

I was part of a huge company that got bought by an even bigger one. They made sure that we all kept our jobs even after the deal was done. In my department, by 18months later, all but one of the team was gone. 2 of us saw it and jumped ship after about a year.

I work for the fed gov, so we're always up for sale.

Employees at a former company inadvertently found out acquisition talks were being completed. Once it was formally announced, the new company would take over on Jan 1 of the following year. The buyer is a huge company everyone would recognize. I had a pregnant wife who would deliver after Jan 1 so I needed some certainty about my future so I lined up a new job and quit on 1/2.

The people who stayed were told to sit tight and keep doing what you’re doing. It was almost a year before they got any direction. None of them got let go, which was unusual.

quote:

---

Just remember whatever the owners / management over your head tell you is a lie.

If you are on the boards or are a VP or someone with a stake in the business, that would be different.

They are selling and sugarcoating whatever they have to so they can keep people from jumping ship before the deal goes through.

---

Yes the day after this was leaked, marketing sent the worst non-denial 'denial' message you've ever seen. Baghdad Bob would have been proud.

quote:

---

With PE it might seem exciting for about a year, but it will suck eventually

---

if you time it just right the PE will usually put some money into growth and that can pay off but always remember that the typical duration of a PE acquisition is 3-5 years and then they'll usually flip it again for profit and the process starts all over. or they might take it IPO and that can be a good thing if you have stock options.

I had a recent case where I started the same time as the PE took ownership and the cash infusion was great for 3 years ... then they started prepping the company to be sold again and cut staff to the bone to keep costs down to maximize profit during the upcoming sale. During that time it went from feast to famine in terms of company resources and taking care of clients.

Contrast that with another role, similar scenario of PE had just acquired them but in this case the PE were so hyperfocused on a short term ROI that they couldn't maintain focus on what worked and kept changing directions every couple months resulting in major changes internally at high frequency.

I might be the only one who thinks this but when CBI bought Shaw it got a little better at least for me.

The organization that I worked for was split into pieces and sold to different companies. I went to one of these companies, it was fine other than them getting rid of remote work (this was pre-COVID). I left after a year because I wanted the flexibility to work remotely because my wife was just wrapping up school. I didn’t want her to be pigeonholed into finding work in the city we were in at the time and I work in a field that has an abundance of remote opportunities.