There is precedent for this kind of trickery being played.

For example, Honeywell acquired Garrett AiResearch, a well known manufacturer of turbochargers for combustion engines, through a series of mergers.

Later on, it loaded them up with debt (over $1.5 billion, mostly asbestos related indemnity obligations from other parts of the business), before spinning them out as an independent entity again. Two years later, Garrett filed for bankruptcy claiming it was succumbing to the unsustainable debt burden placed upon it by its former owner.