It can be very dangerous. If the new GM shows up (and makes a speech about how nobody should “fear for his job”)-start rewriting your resume.
In any event:
-review your job function-and find out what informnation/function you perform is indispensible to the company. Then work on those areas.
-make a list of everything you know that would be valuable to a competitor
-rewrite your resume
Many times, firms overpay for aquisitions-then they look to cut costs-by eliminating jobs. It is YOUR job to make sure that you are not one of them.
Good luck. I am in middle of similar. The EMEA arm of the large American business i work for is being bought by another large European firm in the same industry. I am waiting to find out if my function (ERP support) is to be part of the expected synergies…
I’ve seen a couple of mergers from both sides. Keep in mind, the acquiring company is not acquiring you for your people. Your clients, brand name, proprietary technology and other IP, marketshare and other assets are what is valuable. The actual employees are only valuable to the extent that they contribute to those things.
Expect that your corporate culture will change. Small companies tend to be informal environments. Larger companies by necessity tend to be more structured and beurocratic. And they will be looking to see a return on their recent investment.
Most mergers fail. That is to say, they fail to generate expected returns that would justify the merger. Mostly for many of the reasons already cited. Misrepresenting the truth, poor business model (combined with another poor business model), bad culture fits, failing to retain key employees, so on and so forth.
It’s happened to me a couple of times. The memos from On High on the new letterhead were pretty much the same as the memos from On High on the old letterhead.
This matches my experience of the situation.
Except that I was one of those senior management types who found themselves suprlus to requirements.
I agree with eveything you said. Why do you think I moved up the ranks? I did what the new regime wanted, but I peformed my job instead of being a fake idiot like many others, most of whom ultimately disappeared when they were recognized as dead-weight yes-men.
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I’ve never heard of a case where the situation has improved for employees after a takeover. Maybe there are a few, but based on my experience, things usually tend to get worse despite all promises and guarantees. After a month or two things start changing and going downhill. The whole atmosphere at work becomes different.
If I were you, I’d start quietly looking for another job.
I work for a company that was bought before I worked here. People tell me that for the most part, the parent company has left them alone as long as they produce. There was a period in the early days where some of the older, more entrenched senior staff were pushed out through retirement packages (people tell me that this wasn’t a bad thing). Also, the parent company brought in some good systems for things like HR, payroll, etc. Mostly, they leave them alone.
Years ago, I worked for a company that got bought out and it was not that rosy. Basically, people who didn’t know anything about our industry showed up and started acting like they did, people fled.
So it might be a good experience, but if some guy in a suit shows up and starts telling you how to do your job without demonstrating any knowledge? Update that resume.
I know that this is a bit of a zombie thread, but I thought I’d mention my last company’s recent merger.
I used to work for a medium-sized (500 employee), relatively unknown consulting firm. It was horribly mismanaged. Basically, some guy married into a rich family 15 years ago and used his wife’s money to create an IT consulting firm that tried to be similar to firms like Sapient, Viant, Razorfish, etc (which are all now owned by a French firm Publicis as I understand it). In actually, the culture is probably more similar to Entertainment 720 from Parks & Recreation.
Shortly after I left, they were acquired by a large (20,000 employee) global IT firm. From LinkedIn postings, people keep saying how the parent firm “really wants us to keep our fantastic culture”, even though “they have their own office here in town”.
I have news for you. Large services companies do not need to offices that are the same size in the same city doing the same exact thing. When they say they “want to keep your culture” that means they “want to keep your developers and other billable revenue-generating staff and the rest of you will be fired once we have transitioned your clients”.
My old firm’s website is now mostly a link to the new firm’s site.
It’d be interesting to get an update on the OP’s situation now that it’s 5 years after the merger. Shame that won’t happen.
IME, having gone through it a couple times at very different scales …
To the degree the acquiring and acquired companies are sound businesses soundly managed things will work out pretty well, net of overlaps = redundancies.
To the degree either company is a psychopathic clown car or a just plain dysfunctional family disguised as a business there will be widespread destruction of careers, lives, and actual economic value.
Since the latter forms of business outnumber the good kind probably 10 or 20 to one it’s pretty easy to figure out which way to bet.
I’ve been through this. 600 employee company acquired by a fortune 500 megacorp.
The company’s immediate message was all hugs and smiles, that nothing was planned to change, and that the business was important and would be encouraged to grow mostly autonomously.
Six months in, everyone was required to re-apply for their current jobs, many at reduced salaries. Several departments were ‘rolled in’ to corporate located elsewhere and given relocation options or layoff packages. A permanent bunch of auditors were brought in. 2 years later everyone had received final layoff notices.
A few years ago the company I worked for as a very senior engineer was in the business of designing, manufacturing, and supplying aircraft type parts to various aircraft type industries (lots of Boeing items, etc.). We hired about 300 employees. Then we were sold to a very large corporation, namely Amoco. Absolutely nothing changed, no layoffs, transfers, or anything. Life went on as before
Then, a few years later, were bought by a HUGE corporation, namely British Petroleum. Absolutely nothing changed, no layoffs, transfers, or anything. BP basically let us do our thing with very little interference.
So my experience of going thru a series of larger owners has been very positive,
I’ve worked for two companies that were bought: all smiles and handshakes until the layoffs came. There is redundancy with departments like payroll, finance, quality, IT, etc.
The engineering staff are usually in a good spot.
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I was going to reply to this; but suranyi summed it up very nicely.
I’ve been through this a couple of times, and as of a couple of months ago, I’m at opposite of this… my huge company just spun us off joined with another company they bought. Morale is down to say the least. I lost a lot of friends in the ensuing lay off; with more expected. 
Regarding your situation; just keep in mind that everything they say could be bullshit with regards to making you feel safe. Labor is the costliest part of doing business. No company is going to buy you up and say “When we get this shit figured out, we’re going to try to lay off half of you!” They need your skills until they work out the kinks. Not only that but don’t buy into the "we do a different job function than ‘they’ do. Because positions can be merged or grouped in a million different ways. You may offer a different product, but individual positions probably have overlap. Don’t fall into the trap that your group will always and forever stay intact as a group. Redundant personnel are not determined by the group as a whole. If they see two [insert position here] on staff; that might be one too many. It doesn’t matter if one is the only person with experience on product A and the other is the only person with experience on product B. That’s one too many people on the payroll.
Sorry for the gloom and doom, but the reality is you have to just wait it out; taking everything you’re being told with a grain of salt.
Why won’t it happen? Looks like he’s still around.
Good catch. Seems to have been an overaggressive assumption on my part. It wasn’t a username I recognized so I figured he was mostly a one-hit wonder from 2012.
Upon checking now I see he’s been fairly active as recently as a couple months ago, albeit in forums I don’t visit. I also see he logged on in the last few days.
I’ve just PMed him and we’ll see what if anything comes of it.
Nevermind- Holy Crap! Zombie and I fell for it!!
Zombification: Five Years Later edition!
(Has it really been that long?!?!)
As it turned out, my original expectations for the merger were mostly on target. Only one employee at our site lost their job as a result of downsizing, and it was our controller (HR/finance functionality). Our janitor also lost his job because the new corporation used the E-Verify system and he was undocumented. Otherwise, we were left almost completely alone, personnel-wise, for about 3 years.
Six months after we were purchased, a former competitor of ours (150 employees compared to our 60, with some overlap in terms of services offered) across the country was also purchased. They were treated in much the same way, left to their own devices for a few years. In 2015 we purchased a larger lab (450 employees) which had some overlap with both our existing labs. This purchase ushered in an era of harmonization and efficiency-seeking. Finance/accounting functionality was sourced to the new lab, resulting in layoffs in other locations.
In the last year or two, there has been a big push to excise our old trade name and work under our new name. Branding has come up with a new logo, slogan, posters, business cards, etc. in this endeavor. There is some eye-rolling but it’s also good to present a unified project.
Last year we had an industry-wide downturn which resulted in some lean months. Corporate required sites to lay off some employees–we laid off 4 here at our site, which would have been more if not for some natural attrition that had been taking place over the months prior.
We are now contracting and placing work in a unified fashion based on capacity and client request. Previously, it was extremely rare for a project to move from one site to another, but it is happening much more frequently now. This seems to be a good thing, mostly.
Corporate is making more demands of us than before–revenue forecasting is their current kick. They’re asking us to forecast out to the end of 2018, which is difficult to do when a project lasts up to 6 months and could be contracted at any time. C’est la vie.
Oh, and I’ve been promoted twice or three times since my first post, which is something. 17 years and counting at this company and its predecessors!
I am glad you came back with an update.
I have been through a few of these buyouts and heard the same promises. It didn’t work out well for us.
The overlap that saves $ initially is the CEO/senior management of the purchased firm. They are either given a golden handshake or sidelined and eventually leave. Either way they are gone.
That means all of your remaining management is now middle-a precarious place to be in a downturn. If/when they go, the remaining staff that earns $ is left alone, the cost ratio is in favor of you now.
The problem comes from the original promise “they want to grow the company”. Not they want the existing management to grow the company. It is a significant difference. Because as you pointed out, they don’t know anything about your business. Someone in the main office is given the task of growing that field office. If he/she is smart he immediately looks for a fall guy, because it is a very difficult task for a remote person who isn’t known by your customers to part-time bring in new business. So that doesn’t work, he/she misses his bonus and the field office, if lucky, is left alone.
It sound like things have worked out better in your case than in mine. I was one step below the “efficiency measures” taken by the head office so I didn’t personally suffer, but I sure didn’t enjoy watching.
OTOH, I saw other acquired companies play the game very well. One negotiated such a complex buyout up front that they and their lawyers made millions more in the next few years after the buyout. It was fun to watch. The big boys buying up the company got taken to the cleaners by the little fish. 
Another small company made sure that the upper management chose to live with them in Boston. They took a bunch of hits during the “efficiency measures”, but the big decisions made by upper management always seemed to favor them. While we were all equals in the new company, they made sure they were first among equals. For the rest of us, a lot of people ended up moving on.