As readers will know by now I am a non-executive director at Regent. Regent have been compiling statistics on European tech M&A for 15 years; almost as long as I have been an analyst. Indeed, I have commented on their research on many previous occasions. I'm therefore delighted to bring HotViews readers an in-depth analysis of Regent's Q2 2008 M&A statistics.
Back at the beginning of 2007 Regent's verdict on acquisition activity involving European technology companies was that it had reached the “Peak of the Plateau”. 18 months later, current deal-flow suggests that it was a correct call.
Considering the threatening economic factors that exist in the world markets, acquisition activity in the first half of 2008 has held up well with just a slight tailing off during that 18 month period.
There were 779 acquisitions in the last quarter, a decline of just 1% from the 787 deals announced in the first quarter of 2008. However the combined value of the Q2 2008 acquisitions increased by 18% to $53.4b compared to $45.0b in the previous quarter. This demonstrates that there are still substantial amounts of cash available for suitable transactions despite the credit crunch severely reducing the potential for some of the highly leveraged multi-billion dollar buy-outs.
No comments:
Post a Comment