Contact: Brenon Daly
With a week still remaining in June, spending on tech M&A this month has already matched the total value of all transactions announced over the previous three months combined, according to 451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase. A parade of big-ticket deals, including 11 valued at more than $1bn, has pushed June spending by tech acquirers to its highest monthly level since last October.
Of course, the summer parade is headed by Microsoft’s massive $26.2bn acquisition of LinkedIn in mid-June – a single transaction that exceeds the full monthly spending in all but one month so far this year, according to the M&A KnowledgeBase. But this month’s robust activity has extended beyond just the blockbuster Microsoft-LinkedIn pairing and also includes:
- The largest-ever online gaming deal, with Tencent paying $8.6bn for a majority stake in Supercell.
- Thoma Bravo announcing the biggest take-private of the year, paying $3bn for Qlik.
- Symantec inking the second-largest information security deal with its $4.7bn reach for Blue Coat Systems.
- Salesforce paying $2.8bn – reflecting a 60% premium and double-digit valuation – for Demandware, the biggest SaaS transaction in nearly two years.
More broadly, the colossal spending month of June lifts 2016 above what had been shaping up as a middling year for M&A. (In the January-May period, spending came in less than half the level of the first five months of 2015.) Including the June bonanza boosts total year-to-date spending to about $180bn, putting it on track for the third-highest-spending year since the end of the recession.
2016 monthly tech M&A activity
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451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase
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