Contact: Brenon Daly
In each of the past nine years, 451 Research has surveyed more than 100 corporate development executives to find out which deal announced during that year stood out to them as the most significant transaction. The peer-selected prize, which we call the Golden Tombstone, has gone to companies across the tech landscape. Still, many of those blockbuster transactions haven’t generated the expected returns. The Golden Tombstone, it turns out, can tarnish over time.
We saw that yet again this week, as Intel unwound its full ownership of McAfee, which was voted the most significant transaction of 2010. With that divestiture, the number of Golden Tombstone-winning transactions that have been undone climbed to three, representing an alarming one-third of the annual prize winners. (The others: Hewlett-Packard Enterprises sold off its services business in May, reversing its 2008 acquisition of EDS; and Google unwound its 2011 purchase of Motorola Mobility three years later.) For the record, the ‘exit’ prices for all of those businesses was far less than the ‘entrance’ prices.
Not to jinx the transaction or anything, but we would nonetheless note that last year’s landslide winner was Dell’s acquisition of EMC. That transaction, which was announced last October and officially closed earlier this week, was an obvious vote for the Golden Tombstone. After all, it is the largest pure tech transaction in history. And yet, even though Dell and EMC are only (officially) beginning their corporate life together, there’s already some ominous history lining up against the deal.
Top vote-getter for ‘most significant tech transaction’
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Source: 451 Research Tech Corporate Development Outlook Survey
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