Contact: Brenon Daly
It’s a buyer’s market in tech M&A right now, and the buyers are saying they want to do deals but don’t want to pay much. That’s the takeaway from our annual survey of corporate development officials. (We’ll have a full report on the results in tonight’s 451 Group send-out.) Half of the respondents said the M&A climate would get ‘somewhat better’ for them in 2009, with another one-quarter saying it would get ‘significantly better.’
The percentage this year (75%) compares to less than half (43%) who predicted last year that the environment would improve. More than four out of 10 corporate development officials projected that the pace of their company’s dealmaking would pick up in 2009, with three out of 10 saying it would stay the same. As to what will make the environment better for them this year, the short answer is that they don’t expect to pay much. Some 45% said valuations of VC-backed companies would ‘decline substantially,’ with another 42% predicting that valuations would ‘decline somewhat.’ That’s nearly three times as many respondents who projected any decline in startup valuations in 2007. Again, we’ll have a full report on the survey tonight.
Outlook for corporate buyers
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Source: The 451 Corporate Development Outlook Survey, December 2008