Mike Levine (a financial blogger for Bloomberg) says the industry is calling these sorts of transactions "reverse acqui-hires" to distinguish them from a normal (forward) acquihire where the acquirer buys the whole company even if all it wants is the people. He discusses some of the advantages and legalities here:

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-...

I think they mean rather than acqui-hire, acquiring in order to hire the team. They hired the team they wanted individually to specifically avoid acquiring this company.

I think the original meaning of hi-quired was hijacked-acquired, in the sense that the company was acquihired, all the critical talent transitioned to a more important G project and that's it.

commonly called HALO - Hire And License Out