It's very possible it has been a deal long time in the making.

When you're in an acquisition process, the acquirer will often prey on your weaknesses to get a better deal. If Employer.com had already been in talks prior to the shutdown, then they already knew the financial condition, they may have surprised Bench with a dramatic decrease in the purchase price at the 11th hour in an effort to get a better deal knowing Bench's only other alternative would be to shut down. Maybe Bench called their bluff, called off the deal and shut down. (The only rational reason to do that would be if they think they could successfully sue the acquirer or get the original deal back on the table)

Pure speculation, but typically acquisitions take many months to come together. Even a firesale acquisition doesn't happen in a week.

Lousy behavior all the way around. And with SMB accounting on the last days of the year.

Yup. Though also, the time of maximum leverage probably?

This might not even be worthy of being called a firesale acquisition. It might just be selling the customer contracts locked in with Capchase.

> It's very possible it has been a deal long time in the making.

No.

From the acquirer:

“It fits our product roadmap. It was super serendipitous…I saw that news. I was like, ‘This is perfect.’ It checks a lot of boxes for us. It was just a really good synergistic opportunity, so we went for it.”

https://multitudes.weisser.io/p/how-employercom-acquired-ben...

Now with a list of Board of Directors

https://x.com/amasad/status/1873018020895047744

The lust for a simple good guy vs bad guy narrative is insatiable.

People are spoiling for a fight.

You can’t fight against a vague idea. You can’t fight against something which you’re complicit in. You can’t fight against ‘the good guys’ without being a ‘bad guy’.

So eventually, either we stop spoiling for a fight…. Or someone gives us this kind of fight.