It's probably more accurate to say "desireable" instead of "profitable" here. The decision maker at the acquirer has to believe that there is some profit in it from them, but that doesn't necessarily have much to do with profitability of either side of the transaction, it could just mean a bigger bonus, or shutting out a competitor, or so on.
A profitable company can continue without being acquired. A merely "desirable" but unprofitable may not have this luxury for long enough for another acquisition deal to crop up.
Yes, and it breaks away from the mindset that there's any one thing that matters here and that it could really just be anything that any acquirer finds they like, not just profit.
