Thank you, everyone. I just fiddled with my 401k before it rolls, so hopefully I’ll be a millionaire when I look at it again, and won’t have employment worries.
That’s kind of interesting - does that mean they don’t have as many investment choices as your current employer?
As far as acquisition and 401(k) merging, it can vary. My employer merged with a similar company back in 1998 or so, and the 401(k) just merged. When our consulting division was sold to another company, our money remained in the old 401(k) and we basically started a new account with the new c company’s provider. I believe I could have rolled the old 401(k) into the new employer’s account if I had wanted to, but it would have been just like any other transaction where someone changes jobs (you are permitted to add the funds from a prior job into the new employer’s plan).
I doubt it means anything regarding your likelihood of continued employment, sadly.
What I do think, given the letter, is that you will NOT be able to move your OldCo 401(k) into an IRA, as you could if you were actually changing jobs versus being acquired. Unless there is some specific provision allowing that as a term of the acquisition, that is.
It turns out that the acquiring entity uses Fidelity, same as us, so it’s possible I’ll be able to go and re-set my elections same as before.
We received notification yesterday that the merger will take place within the week, but for the foreseeable future, there’s no change in our working lives and my current company will be considered to be a “wholly owned subsidiary,” with no change to branding, marketing, email addresses, etc.
The two 401(k) plans may not have the same investment options.
Unfortunately you cannot rely on these kinds of statements. In the USA, lying to your employees in generalities is not generally actionable, but lying to investors might be. If they are talking about the merger resulting in “significant complementary synergies” they mean either:
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they can jack up prices after acquiring their main competitor (if they are selling to the consumer this would invite regulatory intervention)
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they plan to lay off the “support functions” of the acquired company (Accounting, Finance, HR, IT, Legal, etc)
They will almost always say that no changes are planned, right up the time when the changes are announced.
I have been in a room making a plan to recover 5000+ laptops from people in my company who are going to be severed over the next eight weeks, while our executives are assuring people that no major changes are imminent in company wide emails. In the fine print (literally a footnote to the email) they say that this email does not amount to a guarantee of continued employment to anyone.
To that end, “within the week” meant “within the next 12 hours.” We just received word that the merger has been completed.
And you know what? I’m fine with it. I’ll do what I need to do. Always have done. Either I’ll continue on in the new company, or Dairy Queen’s always hiring. 