Well, the wedding is off. PitneyBowes is not buying Firstlogic after all. The FTC asked for a second round of review, meaning they were concerned that a monopoly could be formed (specifically, in software for the commercial mailing industry, which is part, but not all, of what we do at Firstlogic). With the prospect of 4-6 more months and millions of dollars being spent--with no certainty of the outcome--the agreement for PB to buy 1L is being allowed to expire.
For once, I was semi-prophetic. At the company meeting announcing the acquisition agreement, during the question period I asked why they thought the agreement would just sail through the FTC, given that we are the two biggest players in the commercial mail market. Nobody had a good answer to that. I'm not thrilled to have seen this coming, but it's interesting in its novelty.
In any case, for the foreseeable future I will remain an employee of "Firstlogic, a wholly owned subsidiary of no one". I'm sure other companies will express interest in purchasing us, so we'll probably go through all of this again at some point, but for now we're still a privately held company based in La Crosse, WI.
The more things change, the more they stay insane...
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