Private equity will suck as much money out of the company as they can until it starts to fail and then they’ll sell it. Firing employees and making others do their work for no extra pay, if you have patents they’ll sell those, close facilities and force everyone into smaller spaces… literally nothing is off limits. Idk how much is publicly available, but if it is you can look at Avaya for an example. Went from being literally the biggest supplier of phones in the world with the majority of patents on applications for telecom technology to going bankrupt and having to restructure. They’re now on a single floor in a shitty building and most work has been outsourced.

Why did the employees allow the sale?

A lot of people already said it.. sorry for all the doom and gloom.

If you can, gtfo and if you have stock get rid of it. What you see is just the beginning. Next stage all the most competent employees will jump ship, and will not be replaced. Leaving not only fewer employees to do the same work, it also leaves the ones without the skills and knowledge.

It will get sour fast, and whoever is in charge is there for the private equity to maximize their ROI. So no use talking to management or HR.

The strategy is to strip the company to the bones. Anything that can be sold will be sold (Buildings, furniture, IP). And if the company needs it to operate it will be leased back at a monthly rate. All cash this generates is pulled from the company to the PE firm. If they can they will saddle the company with a debt for the purchase of itself, so they can have the company not only pay that back, but with interest (a leveraged buyout). Some of these assets sold off can easily go to other subsidiaries of the same PE firm.. such as real estate. Assuring their long term profitability.

Has anyone else rode out a private equity buyout?

You could ask if you are eligible for a retention bonus. This is a cash award that is given if you stay X amount of time, or if they lay you off before X amount of time. These are commonly given to key employees when a large transition is happening. It should be a significant amount. About 10 years ago I was offered an $11k retention bonus and accepted it. It doesn't require you to stay working there, you could leave at any time, but it gives you a bit of protection if they part ways with you early, and if they don't you get a nice chunk of change at the end of the period. I didn't think I'd say, but things did get a bit better (until they got worse again), but I did get the bonus, and was laid off within 12 months of the payout (so about 3 years later after the retention bonus offer).

If they say "no", then they're telling you that you're either not valuable enough or that they are keeping their options open for laying you (and likely others) off. Brush up your skills and resume and start looking elsewhere. You're likely not going to be fired/laidoff immediately, but its its not going to get better.

Private equity = Fisher
Company = Fish

The company is going to be gutted and filleted.

It’s what private equity does. Take something of value to someone else, destroy it in order to harvest that value for themselves. “Locusts” are another apt analogy.

Same happened at my company. I had seen the writing on the wall, so I bounced right before it happened.

Are you at Moog?