Technology companies pay attention to large transactions

Contracts of mergers and acquisitions are still common in the technology sector. Big players hunted for small firms before but now IT-giants are trying to focus on large transactions. That is the conclusion made by experts of the research agency PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Experts estimated that the number of transactions in high technologies decreased by 35% in the II quarter of 2012 compared to last year's index, however, the cost of acquisitions increased by 19% for the year. A similar trend was noted in 2011 relative to 2010.

In the period from April to June 2012 technology companies have spent about $31.8B on the purchase of other firms whose activities are connected with the sector of Hi-Tech. There were 55 deals in total; the average contract is estimated at $578.2 M. As a result of the II quarter of 2011, $26.8B was spent in 85 deals with about $315 M allocated to each transaction.

In the last quarter, according to DailyComm portal, the largest IT acquisition has been made by German software company SAP. It bought Ariba Company, a well-known provider of commercial platforms for online businesses. The transaction value was $4.3B (or $ 45 per share), which is the largest investment of SAP in cloud computing.

In June 2012 it became known that Microsoft will own Yammer Company, an operator of the eponymous social network designed for businessmen. According to experts, the acquisition of Yammer will expand the functionality of corporate software and integrate Yammer portal’s capabilities in their products used by corporate clients. The price of the issue is $1.2B.

According to Dealogic, the total cost of mergers and acquisitions in technology and telecommunications industries have reached $323.3 B over the first eight months of 2011 and that is only slightly less than the peak in August 2008, shortly before the global economic crisis ($338, 8B).