It’s a common term in these sorts of acquisition attempts now. AT&T paid T-mobile $3 billion.
A failed acquisition attempt can be very damaging to the company being acquired. You can lose employees who don’t want to work at the new entity that never happened. It can change your product roadmap (are you really going to invest in directions the acquirer won’t want after completion?) and make your executive team start job hunting. Etc.
So it’s not unreasonable or uncommon for the acquirer to agree to such a provision. And the board was presumably highly involved in a large offer like that.
A failed acquisition attempt can be very damaging to the company being acquired. You can lose employees who don’t want to work at the new entity that never happened. It can change your product roadmap (are you really going to invest in directions the acquirer won’t want after completion?) and make your executive team start job hunting. Etc.
So it’s not unreasonable or uncommon for the acquirer to agree to such a provision. And the board was presumably highly involved in a large offer like that.