The phrase "acquired firm" is correct and usable in written English.
It is typically used in a business context to refer to a company that has been purchased or taken over by another company.
Example: "The acquired firm will continue to operate under its original brand while integrating with our existing operations."
Alternatives: "purchased company" or "acquired company".
To succeed it is not enough to run the acquired firm well.
An acquired firm must follow hard rules, such as supplying financial information ("joining GE is like taking a drink from a fire hose" is one complaint).
The A.P. wrote: There have been cases when the S.E.C. has shown leniency toward companies that have acquired other firms that may have violated securities laws, since the parent company didn't play a part and the acquired firm ceases to exist.
Along the way he acquired firm ideas about history writing that he set out in the widely quoted preface to the first volume of his history of the crusades: "Faced by the mountainous heap of the minutiae of knowledge and awed by the watchful severity of his colleagues, the modern historian too often takes refuge in learned articles or narrowly specialized dissertations.
Study after study of past merger waves has shown that two of every three deals have not worked; the only winners are the shareholders of the acquired firm, who sell their company for more than it is really worth.In the past, buyers have justified deals by citing questionable synergies (remember the hardware-software argument that lured Sony and Matsushita into Hollywood).
There are several advantages in the holding company: it can control the acquired firm with a smaller investment than would be required in a merger; each firm remains a separate legal entity, and the obligations of one are separate from those of the other; and, finally, stockholder approval is not necessary as it is in the case of a merger.
One interesting example can be found in Kapoor and Lim's (2007) study, where the authors compare the innovative productivity of inventors from acquired firms to that of non-acquired firms and find that inventors in acquired firms are less innovative (Kapoor and Lim 2007).
Shareholders in acquiring firms typically gain less from mergers than shareholders in acquired firms.
Academic studies of all of the big merger waves of this century have shown clearly that, although shareholders of acquired firms have tended to benefit, those in the acquiring firm have lost.
By Definition, shareholders of acquired firms are happy with their dowry, or they would not have parted with their shares.
Only a few companies today — G.E. and Cisco come to mind — have been consistently able to take acquired firms and improve their performance and profitability.
