Contact: Brenon Daly
As the United Kingdom gets set to vote in a historic referendum on its membership in the European Union, we would note that a ‘Brexit’ has already been happening when it comes to tech M&A. The island’s trade relations with the 27 other EU countries are just a fraction of its domestic deals and its acquisition activity with its former colony, the US. It turns out that not many tech transactions flow across the Channel.
Over the past half-decade, just 164 UK-based tech companies have sold to companies based in fellow EU countries, according to 451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase. Proceeds from the EU shoppers have totaled only $7bn, with most of that ($4.9bn, or 70%) coming in a single transaction (France’s Schneider Electric picked up London-based Invensys in mid-2013). After that blockbuster, the size of UK-EU transactions drops swiftly, with just one other print valued at more than $300m.
Those paltry totals stand in sharp contrast to the UK’s transatlantic dealings. Some 597 British tech companies have been picked up by US-based buyers, with total spending hitting $57bn, according to 451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase. For perspective, that’s more than the $53bn that UK tech companies have paid for fellow UK tech companies in the same period.
Of course, the US and the UK share a primary language and a ‘special relationship’ – in the Churchill sense – that doesn’t extend to other EU countries. And the US has the world’s largest economy, along with the most-acquisitive tech companies, many of which have mountains of cash from European operations that they can’t bring back to the US without taking a significant tax hit. But still, when we compare US-UK and EU-UK acquisition activity, we can’t help but notice the union ties just don’t bind.
Acquisitions of UK-based tech companies since Jan. 1, 2011
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Source: 451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase
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