Tech M&A spending appears to be settling into a new normal. In the just-completed month of May, total spending on tech, media and telecom transactions across the globe came in at $21.2bn, according to 451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase. That marks the fifth straight month that spending has totaled about $20bn, a level of consistency rarely seen in the generally lumpy tech M&A market. For comparison, in the January-May period in each of the past three years, the highest monthly spending has been at least twice the lowest monthly spending.
May also marked another month of consistency in terms of deal value being concentrated at the top end of the market. Last month, the three largest transactions accounted for half of the total spending, according to the M&A Knowledgebase. That has been true for every month so far in 2016 except February. May’s big-ticket deals included CSC’s purchase of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s services arm, which stands as the largest divestiture of 2016; Bell Canada’s consolidation of Manitoba Telecom Services; and Vista Equity Partners’ buyout of Marketo, the second-largest take-private of 2016.
Assuming the relatively uniform monthly spending holds for the remaining seven months of 2016, the full-year value of tech deals would come in at about $275bn. That would be less than half of the amount spent in 2015, which represented a 15-year high in M&A, and basically match the level of 2013.
Deal flow in 2016
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Source: 451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase