Free win if your firm gets acquired?

If you work at a lesser-known firm, and your firm gets acquired by a prestigious firm, do you get a free win for now working for the prestigious firm?

E.g., u were working as a regular analyst at ISI then it got acquired by Evercore, u were at Dean Witter then it merged with MS, etc

Of course, assuming you don't get pushed out. I get that you don't automatically have better lateral opportunities to the prestigious firm

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The free win should be in the form of stock options, retention bonuses, or raises based on moving/merging into a more upscale job title due to the company buyout or merger.

Also, please use proper grammar next time. Is it that hard to spell out "you" vs "u"? Punctuation helps too. Professionalism matters.

The poster formerly known as theAudiophile. Just turned up to 11, like the stereo.
 
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Depends. -  It also matters 'why' the acquisition happened.  In certain circumstances it can be a downgrade.

I was part of two acquisitions in my career.  The end result was quite different each time.

The first time I was part of a tiny (20 ppl) start-up acquired by a large, prestigious firm looking to get into my niche.  They wanted to build around us, and said "everybody. nothing's changing except you're getting our benefits package now."  Then one guy left and it was "HEYYYY, how does everybody feel about 25% raises?"  We got the funding and support we could never afford, and my mom finally had heard of the company I worked for.  Promotions, raises, etc. the next few years were insane.

A few years later we found that the firm was JUST large enough to be bought.  The company was 4X our AUM, but had a much worse reputation.  They were also more than 10X our size in my niche.  They were also very acquisitive going for scale with no corporate culture to speak of. (average tenure at the prior firm was 15yrs+, which is unheard of in AM)  Attrition in my department was 90%+ during the deal, and my raises were minimal after that at the new firm.

The only difference between Asset Management and Investment Research is assets. I generally see somebody I know on TV on Bloomberg/CNBC etc. once or twice a week. This sounds cool, until I remind myself that I see somebody I know on ESPN five days a week.
 

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