Welcome to 2014! It’s a New Year and a new beginning for many of our friends and clients who transacted in recent months.
Click here for our Market Update
Each year, we are asked for our forecast for M&A activity and values. Usually I demur. This year, I’m happy to go out on a limb. 2014 will be a year for extremely strong values – but only for a subset of sellers. Strategic and financial players have plenty of cash and desire; and banks are willing to lend. But the demand is primarily for companies with scale, defensible proprietary advantages, and demonstrated high levels of growth. For those compaies, values will be strong. The weak need not apply.
Our enclosed Market Update provides our current sense of M&A values, activity and trends for the dozen plus technology, information and healthcare sectors that we follow. When reviewing the numbers, however, be aware that the devil is often in the details. Averages often conceal what is really going on. For more insight, give us a call.
Some of the notable deals this past month include:
- Bain Capital (Boston, MA) agreed to acquire Macromill for ¥43.8bn ($427mm);
- FireEye (NasdaqGS:FEYE) agreed to acquire Mandiant for $1.1bn;
- Klarna (Stockholm, Sweden) agreed to acquire Sofort for SEK 1.3bn ($198mm);
- Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) acquired Amba Investment Services for an undisclosed sum;
- ObserveIT (Albany, NY) raised $20mm in funding from Bain Capital Ventures;
- Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) agreed to acquire Responsys for $1.6bn;
- Planview (Austin, TX) raised an undisclosed sum from Insight Venture Partners; and
- SunGard (Wayne, PA) agreed to acquire Softputer Technologies’ FundBridge and NSARFiler solutions for an undisclosed sum.
Marlin & Associates is one of the most active firms advising buyers and sellers of U.S. and international middle-market firms that provide software, data, and related services. The firm is based in New York City, with offices in San Francisco, CA, Washington, DC, Toronto, Canada, and Hong Kong, China and has been the recipient of numerous awards including “Middle-Market Investment Bank of the Year”, “Middle-Market Financing Agent of the Year – Equity.” And “TMT Advisory Bank of the Year”. Two transactions on which Marlin & Associates advised have been recognized as “Deals-of-the Decade”. Marlin & Associates’ team of professionals has advised over 200 information-technology transactions.
We wish you and your families the best of a happy, healthy 2014.