[asanwal]

Thank you.

I don't think there is an Indian social contract but having been born and brought up here in the USA, I'd be talking out of my a$$ on that topic :)

This was maybe more of an implied or expected contract I had with my dad and mom who built the business and by extension the Atlas team.

Job hopping is quite common in India, but that's probably more common in larger cities. In a tier 2 city like where my dad's business was, there are limited options for a plant engineer for example, and as far as I can tell, the skills they have in a fine chemicals plant may not be immediately transferable to a plastics manufacturer.

And finally, many were with my dad for 10+ years so probably some amount of comfort in knowing the domain, the job, the boss, etc.

[jll29]

Thanks for the story and for putting the employees first. M&A of your sort should always select suitors based on chemistry fit - so when I read your list of candidates, it was already clear to me you would sell to the one listed last, and I'm glad it worked.

Selling to Private Equity is almost never what any founder would have wanted, as their job is to slice and dice, "cut the fat" and sell the pieces to different highest bidders.

[999900000999]

>Selling to Private Equity is almost never what any founder would have wanted, as their job is to slice and dice, "cut the fat" and sell the pieces to different highest bidders.

Depends on the founder, I'm happy that the OP decided to look after his workers, but there's no loyalty in business.

Many founders would just look at the largest payday and be done with it.

I guess you can have a George Lucas moment and criticize the new owners for destroying what you made, but you're sitting nice with your profits.

OP comes off as someone who was already really comfortable, and the business appears to of been profitable.

But it would have been a completely different story if they were losing money, at a point you might just have to sell the company for parts and cut your losses.

Maybe offer some of the lifers generous severance packages.

[Applejinx]

Does it count as business, though, if you're just busting it out, light a match? Is that not more, vandalism? Seems not as difficult.

[gopher_space]

He means “just business” in the mob sense.