RE:News...as expectedI would speculate that moving employees to another company at another location could still be treated as a layoff and rehire and could still trigger termination packages, so i would not expect it to reduce wind up costs much, after all they are just spending shareholders money not their own to keep long time friends/co-workers happy and ensure no followup law suits etc.
Bottom line, we will never know until it all unfolds in just over a year.