Contact: Brenon Daly
In the midyear update to our league table, Credit Suisse Securities has emerged as the busiest adviser in tech M&A for the first two quarters of 2009. It was a dramatic rebound for Credit Suisse, which fell out of the top 10 in 2008 after ranking third in 2007. The bank owes much of its standing to its role in helping to sell Sun Microsystems to Oracle, which was the tech industry’s largest deal since mid-2008. (Our league table is based on acquisitions of US-based IT businesses that were announced – but not necessarily closed – in the first half of the year.)
But it wasn’t just the one whopper deal that put Credit Suisse on top. In fact, the bank not only advised on the highest amount of tech M&A spending ($10.4bn), it also advised on the largest number of transactions (10). That’s even more noteworthy since Credit Suisse did not participate in the wave of consolidation that has swept through investment banking over the past year. The next two firms in our rankings both bolstered their tech banking practices by doing some M&A of their own.
Banc of America Securities, which ranked second on our midyear league table, has enjoyed a significant boost in its tech advisory business since it closed its purchase of Merrill Lynch on January 1. The combined entity advised on six deals worth some $8.3bn so far this year. Just behind Banc of America is JP Morgan Securities, which added Bear Stearns in a distressed sale in mid-2008. JP Morgan ranked third, with five deals valued at $8bn. We will have the full standings and analysis on the midyear league table in a special report that will be included in tonight’s Daily 451 sendout.
League table standings, midyear 2009
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Source: The 451 M&A KnowledgeBase