Key employees should be addressed as early as possible about the intended/ongoing deal and the role they would take over after the acquisition would be finalised.
The uncertainty about the future role of these key employees, how their new organisation would look like (specially considering the acquisition is done by a significant larger company compared to the target company), and missing information about the targets of the newly merged company might trigger the loss of key employees. This could lead i.e. into loosing pace on research & development projects and ongoing negotiations could slower down or even break-up.
