Yes. The actual entities, ownership and control must be assessed, including the effect and timing of planned changes.
Compare the two structures
Prepare a dated account of the arrangement before and after the transaction. Identify which entity employs the applicant at each stage. Do not assume a historical connection or shared name proves a continuing qualifying relationship after ownership changes.
For both people, confirm one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad during the relevant three-year period and a parent, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate relationship, with the foreign organization doing business; for a new-office L-1A petition, that foreign year itself must have been managerial or executive. Choose the route the records actually support rather than the one that sounds more impressive, and confirm separately that the qualifying parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationship exists, since no amount of duty evidence rescues a case where it does not. Where the successor comes from a different part of the group, the two threads meet at a single question, whether the employing entity abroad is itself a qualifying related company, and that question should be answered before either thread continues.