-Contact: Brenon Daly
Although total tech M&A spending in the first half of 2012 is down one-third from the previous year, the third quarter has started with a bang. Even with the midweek holiday, the opening week of the new quarter has seen unusually strong deal flow, with several big-name buyers sealing gigantic deals. For instance, Dell’s (apparent) winning bid for Quest Software would be the company’s largest transaction in almost three years while Micron Technology’s move to consolidate bankrupt DRAM provider Elpida Memory is twice as big as any deal the chip vendor has done in the past.
Boosted by this pair of multibillion-dollar transactions, the aggregate value of acquisitions announced so far in July has topped $8.7bn. To put that into perspective, that compares to just $13.8bn for the entire month of July in 2011. So although it is early, spending this month is well on its way to exceeding the level from last July. Provided M&A activity continues tracking that way for the month, July would mark only the second time in 2012 that individual monthly totals have topped the level from the same month of 2011. (See our full Q2 report for more on the state of the M&A market.)
2012 monthly activity
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Source: The 451 M&A KnowledgeBase
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