I don't think it's plausible. Sure, it is common for the majority of payouts in acquihires that are in the $1M-$50M range to be through handcuffs. When a compan

I don't think it's plausible. Sure, it is common for the majority of payouts in acquihires that are in the $1M-$50M range to be through handcuffs. When a company is acquired for $600M, that is not an acquihire, and I would be very surprised if retention payments for such a small number of employees totaled $400M. I would be happy to be corrected, if someone has heard of situations where small acquired companies had such large golden handcuffs.