A critical aspect of any merger or acquisition—and one that sometimes remains unexamined until late in the deal process—is the handling of qualified retirement plans. In general, buyers can assume sellers’ qualified retirement plans, merge sellers’ plans into the buyers’ plans, require the seller to terminate its plans (as a condition of closing), or require the seller to freeze its plans. The decision can be made on a case-by-case basis or a blanket solution can be implemented, which Terry Dunne, Managing Director of Retirement Services, discusses in this 401K Specialist article.