I think an acqui-hire here is a just a kind of fire sale, and he is just saying that fire sales (including acqui-hires) are preferable to shut downs (get some money for the assets, feels more like a win for everyone involved, employees have continuous employment, etc.)
I think he was using them as synonyms. That would explain to me why there's only one comma there, instead of two commas to make a series of three nouns, and also subsequently only two further explanatory descriptions.
