Last year, my company was purchased in a stock deal by another organization. My company set up a new 401(k) plan and a DB plan. We are doing coverage testing and are trying to determine who the highly compensated employees are. Do we include compensation paid by the old company -- basically, my question is does the HCE definition require prior employer compensation be considered when determining an HCE if it was stock deal?

A corporation is a separate legal entity. If the corporation paid $150,000 (for example) to John Doe last year, Mr. Doe is an HCE this year, regardless of changes in the ownership of the stock of the corporation (unless he isn't an HCE because of the 20% rule).