A September slump for tech M&A

Contact: Brenon Daly

Summer is always a seasonally slow time for M&A. But this year, it’s like no one was even at their desks to do deals at all. With September wrapping up, spending on tech transactions around the globe is coming in at its second-lowest monthly total of 2012. Even compared with September 2011, it was quiet this month: Deal value dropped almost 40%, year-on-year, to just $5.8bn.

To put that paltry deal total into perspective, consider that earlier this year, Cisco dropped almost that much on a single transaction, handing over $5bn for British set-top box software provider NDS. Indeed, we tallied only one acquisition valued at more than $1bn in September, down from an average of about three 10-digit deals in each month so far in 2012. Altogether, the slump in September activity means that M&A spending has now dropped in seven of the nine months this year.

2012 monthly activity

Month Deal volume Deal value % change in spending vs. same month, 2011 January 340 $4.1bn Down 65% February 266 $10.4bn Up 16% March 292 $16.8bn Down 30% April 277 $14.1bn Down 47% May 310 $15.6bn Down 47% June 291 $13.3bn Down 20% July 336 $21.1bn Up 52% August 277 $10.3bn Down 74% September 266 $5.8bn Down 38%

Source: The 451 M&A KnowledgeBase