Contact: Brenon Daly
After a summer of discontent, the environment for tech M&A in the coming year once again appears welcoming, according to 451 Research’s annual survey of corporate development executives. More than half of the company dealmakers we surveyed indicated they expected to be busier in the coming year than they had been in the previous one. The number who predicted an increase actually ticked up slightly to 56% this year from 52% in our previous survey.
Meanwhile, when we asked about the overall climate for M&A, three times the number of corporate development executives projected it would get better rather than worsen in the coming year (43% vs. 14%). The sentiment is slightly more bullish than the result last year, when actual M&A spending totals rose for the second straight year following the dramatic drop-off during the recession.
The robust outlook for dealmaking in 2012 is even more remarkable when we compare it with the results from a special ‘flash survey’ we sent out in early August. At that time, the equity markets were sliding to their lowest levels in a year as volatility hit its highest level since early 2009. (It was also the time when the US got its AAA credit rating clipped by Standard & Poor’s, a downgrade that had been largely unimaginable before the recession.) Back in August, just one-third (32%) of respondents indicated they would be busier in the back half of 2011 compared with the first half of the year. We’ll have a full report on the survey results – including the outlook for M&A valuations, as well as which deal got voted as the most significant one in 2011 – in tonight’s Daily 451.
Projected change in M&A activity
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Source: 451 Research Tech Corporate Development Outlook Survey