Putting a premium on growth
Posted by Brenon Daly on February 10, 2012
Contact: Brenon Daly Over just the past two months, the two largest stand-alone human capital management (HCM) providers have been gobbled up by two of the largest software vendors. Back in December, it was SAP reaching across the Atlantic for SuccessFactors, while just yesterday Oracle announced its plan to take home Taleo. Both of the software [...]
Selling to Facebook
Posted by Ben Kolada on February 7, 2012
Contact: Ben Kolada Rather than buy into Facebook after it debuts on the open market, many companies may consider selling to the social networking giant after its IPO. Facebook is already rich with cash, and is about to become much richer. Meanwhile, its M&A strategy has so far focused on acquiring smaller startups for their [...]
Rough start to 2012 as January tech M&A spending drops 70%
Posted by Brenon Daly on February 1, 2012
Contact: Brenon Daly As the new year starts, tech acquirers have yet to really reach deep to do any deals. In January, aggregate spending on all tech transactions across the globe plummeted to just $3.5bn – the lowest monthly level since the bottom of the recession in February 2009. Compared to the January 2011 total [...]
Intel: the latest tech giant to buy patents
Posted by Tejas Venkatesh on January 27, 2012
Contact: Thejeswi Venkatesh Intel has announced the acquisition of 190 patents, 170 patent applications and video codec software from RealNetworks for $120m. The transaction comes just eight months after Intel bought SiPort, a Santa Clara, California-based company that made audio-processing semiconductors. We see these moves as an indication that Intel wants to integrate more media [...]
A vote of confidence?
Posted by Ben Kolada on January 26, 2012
Contact: Ben Kolada There’s no denying that behavior in the equity markets is one of the main influencers on big-ticket M&A. Stock market stability provides a vote of confidence for corporate acquirers to pursue large, game-changing deals. Without stable markets, the valuation gap between buyers and sellers becomes too wide for potential sellers to accept. [...]
PE firms play small ball
Posted by Brenon Daly on January 4, 2012
Contact: Brenon Daly After years of writing multibillion-dollar checks in some of the largest tech transactions, private equity (PE) shops dramatically scaled back their purchases in 2011. The single biggest deal last year (The Blackstone Group’s $3bn take-private of healthcare technology vendor Emdeon) only ranked 15th among the largest transactions in 2011. It was the [...]
A continuing M&A recovery in 2011
Posted by Brenon Daly on January 3, 2012
Contact: Brenon Daly The choppiness that was felt in the overall M&A market in 2011 also came through in the totals for the year. While the number of transactions hit a five-year high, spending on tech deals in 2011 didn’t necessarily keep pace. The total value of transactions announced last year around the globe rose [...]
And the Golden Tombstone goes to …
Posted by Brenon Daly on December 23, 2011
Contact: Brenon Daly It’s time to once again hand out our annual award for Tech Deal of the Year, as voted by corporate development executives in our recent survey. For the second straight year, the voting came down to a tight race between two transactions. For 2011, Google’s planned purchase of Motorola Mobility just edged [...]
AT&T’s loss is Verizon’s gain
Posted by Ben Kolada on December 21, 2011
Contact: Ben Kolada In the land of multibillion-dollar telco mergers, sometimes the piecemeal approach is more effective than a one-and-done deal. AT&T attempted to leap over the competition with its proposed $39bn acquisition of T-Mobile USA; however, the world’s largest telecom company fell flat on its face. In failing to secure the T-Mobile takeover, AT&T [...]
Survey says: Tech M&A is likely to pick up in 2012
Posted by Brenon Daly on December 19, 2011
Contact: Brenon Daly After a summer of discontent, the environment for tech M&A in the coming year once again appears welcoming, according to 451 Research’s annual survey of corporate development executives. More than half of the company dealmakers we surveyed indicated they expected to be busier in the coming year than they had been in [...]
keep looking »