First Half 2014 Shows Further Upswing in Technology M&A Transactions

We noted a further uptick in announced mergers and acquisitions for technology companies in Q2 2014.  Technology mergers and acquisitions worldwide more than doubled in the first half of 2014, with deals worth $383.4 billion in that span, up 122% from the year-earlier figure, according to Mergermarket.

The majority of technology deals happened in the U.S., trailed by the Asia Pacific.

More than half of the M&A activity this year was during Q2 2014. The value of M&A's in Q2 tripled to $200.9 billion from $67 billion in Q2 2013.

Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) have been especially active in M&A this year as they all expand into new businesses and technologies. The telecommunications sector also showed a heavy uptick as it further consolidated.


For more information regarding Technology M&A, please contact us: mergers@generationequityadvisors.com


Generation Equity Advisors is a Los Angeles based technology and digital media M&A advisor and investment banking firm. Its professionals have completed over $20 billion in M&A transactions and are experienced investment bankers. For more information about Generation Equity Advisors, please go to: www.generationequityadvisors.com

Year-End Software M&A Update and 2012 Outlook

We expect M&A activity to remain steady for 2012 and possibly uptick further if the lending environment eases globally.  While Europe is in economic turmoil, the U.S. is stabilizing.  Emerging markets such as Brazil, Argentina and China are all on the upswing and in growth mode.  We expect some financial buyers (private equity) to remain on the sidelines while strategic buyers (companies) will acquire to capture growth. Buyout firms accounted for around 16 percent of company takeovers in 2011.

Volatile equity markets slowed mounting U.S. deal activity in the third and fourth quarters, following growing deal momentum in the first two quarters of 2011.  In light of concerns over European debt and a pullback in financing, U.S. merger and acquisition activity in the second half of 2011 was driven by well-prepared dealmakers focused on executing acquisitive growth strategies and availability of businesses with strong fundamentals– a key trend expected to continue into 2012, according to PwC's Year-End U.S. M&A Outlook.

Sellers now are looking for both speed and certainty in a deal, and also pursuing various alternative options and scenarios as they proceed as a way of maximizing the asset’s value. With sellers in the driver's seat, buyers must remain poised and ready when deal negotiations continue for a prolonged timeframe. Overall, the M&A markets are on track to stabilize further and increase overall over the next few years.

A few M&A highlights for 2011:

·         The most active acquirers within the Software Industry through Q3 2011 were EMC Corporation and Google Inc. with 10 acquisitions each.

•        Vista Equity Partners was the most active financial acquirer during Q3 2011 with 5 acquisitions: Thomson Reuters Trade and Risk Management Business, Sage Healthcare Inc., CompuLaw LLC, Client Profiles, Inc. and CyberShift, Inc.

·        The largest transaction for the third quarter as well as the 1st 3 Quarters of 2011 was the acquisition of Autonomy Corporation plc by HP for $10.28 billion and represents a 10.8x revenue multiple and a 24.5x EBITDA multiple.

·        Total transaction volume in Q3 2011 for Software companies decreased by 11% over Q2 2011, from 366 to 324 transactions.

·        Total transaction value in Q3 2011 for Software companies decreased by 22% over Q2 2011, from $29.9 billion to $23.4 billion.

·         Median EBITDA multiples in Q3 2011 remained largely unchanged from the last quarter, at 13.6x.

·         Median revenue multiples in Q3 2011 remained nearly the same, at 2.3x times revenue.

For more information and to download the full report (free), go to:   www.generationequityadvisors.com

Q2 2011 - Software M&A Update

M&A Deals and Values Are Rising

Big-ticket deals drove the aggregate value of global technology mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to US$52.1bn in the second quarter of 2011, nearly doubling the deal value from an already strong first quarter, according to Ernst & Young’s Global Technology M&A update, April – June 2011. The surge was powered by industry consolidation and by ongoing disruptive innovation in areas such as cloud computing, smart mobility, internet and mobile video, the smart grid and solar energy, the report states.

The US$52.1 billion in Q2 2011 aggregate value (of deals with disclosed values) was 92% higher than in Q2 2011 (US$27.1bn) and 69% higher than the year-earlier quarter (US$30.8bn). The average value for deals with disclosed-values rose to $194m — the highest quarterly average since the first quarter of 2000, during the dot-com boom. According to published reports, the quarter includes the 20th-largest global technology deal ever by dollar value.

Companies continued this upward trend in Q2 2011 of making multiple small acquisitions and weaving them together to address strategic business initiatives. We noted this trend, for example, among internet companies, which acquired multiple social networking companies, and among established software and SaaS companies, which bought multiple SaaS companies.

Also exemplifying this pattern were software and SaaS providers purchasing social networking companies in order to add social functions into their enterprise applications or their advertising/marketing platforms. Similarly, the rise of "deal-a-day" e-commerce companies was reflected in a series of consolidation transactions among small and regional competitors and by geographic expansion deals done by larger competitors.

Cross-border deals add to growth

Q2 2011 data also shows the growth of cross-border (CB) deals in both volume and value. CB deal volume in the quarter was 16% higher sequentially, compared with an 11% decline in in-border (IB) deals, and 32% higher than the year-earlier quarter, compared with a 19% increase for IB. At US$24bn, the aggregate value of CB deals was 46% of the aggregate value for all Q2 2011 deals (CB + IB), up from 40% in Q1 and for all of 2010. The report suggests that increasing globalization and the growing volume of “overseas” cash stockpiled by US-based companies may be behind the increase in CB deal-making as the US acquired 56% of all CB value acquired.

Overall, deal volume for the quarter increased 24% year-over-year (YOY) to 777 deals, but slightly declined 2% sequentially from 794 deals in quarter 1. Although small, it was the first sequential quarterly decline since Q1 2009.

Continued strong outlook for 2011 M&A

Given a strong first quarter start to the year and the unleashing of big-ticket deals in Q2 2011, there is increasing momentum behind global technology M&A transactions heading into the second half of the year. In addition, technology continues to influence the development of the entire global economy, as information technology evolves into an increasingly valuable component of all products and services.

Moreover, technology companies continue to stockpile cash, which gives them the flexibility to act when strategic M&A opportunities arise. In aggregate, the cash and investments held by the sector’s top 25 companies (as defined in the report) grew to $591bn by the end of Q2 2011 — an 18% YOY increase from US$499bn at the end of Q2 2010. After the first quarter M&A results, we noted the potential for a big year for technology M&A in 2011, but we were concerned over increasing divergence between buyers and sellers over valuation, geopolitical unrest, the continuing US debt ceiling and government spending debate, global debt issues and other unforeseeable possibilities. Yet all these hurdles were overcome to produce a very robust second quarter.

Moreover, technology companies have the fuel they need to increase M&A spending. In aggregate, the cash and investments held by the sector's top 25 companies (as defined in the report), which topped the half-trillion-dollar mark by the end of 2010, grew to US$544b by the end of 1Q11 — an 18% YOY increase from US$461b at the end of 1Q10.  "These truly exciting technology innovations, the growing cash stockpiles that technology companies are increasingly challenged to put to good use and the strong start to the year represented by these first quarter M&A results suggest a big year for technology M&A in 2011. Realistically, however, we must temper those pluses with concern over increasing divergence between buyers and sellers over valuation, geopolitical unrest, global debt issues and other unforeseeable possibilities. 

More info and the complete report is available (free) for download at:  www.techmediamergers.com


Source(s):  Ernst & Young, The 451 Group, Factset Mergerstat, Company Websites and News, SEC Filings, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg, Gartner

Tech Merger Update and Forecast, 2009-2010

Tech Mergers and Acquisitions to grow in 2010


After a glacially slow start to 2009 in the mergers and acquisitions market, technology companies started buying again in the second half of the year and analysts expect the resurgence in takeover activity to continue in 2010.

Technology M&A activity in the United States hit lows of $US3.1 billion in the first quarter and $2.3 billion in the second quarter of this year, as measured by value of closed deals. Those numbers were a far cry from the $13.8 billion posted in the second quarter of 2008 and the $44.6 billion in the third quarter of 2008, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

But the industry is starting to rebound with $9.8 billion worth of closed deals in the third quarter of 2009. Future M&A activity is always hard to predict, but the trends are going in the right direction, analysts say.

"If you look at the first two quarters of the year it was almost at decade lows, which is pretty meaningful if you consider what else happened this decade" with the dot-com bubble bursting, says Rob Fisher, leader of PwC's tech M&A services group. "What we saw was basically the deal volumes doubled in Q3 compared to Q2 and actually basically doubled the year to date stats. Given the announcements we've seen over the last few months it's our expectation we will see another doubling."

Billion-dollar deals made a comeback in the third quarter of this year with announcements such as Xerox's $6.5 billion purchase of Affiliated Computer Services and Dell's planned acquisition of Perot Systems for $3.9 billion.

Dell's acquisition of Perot closed in the fourth quarter and Xerox-ACS is still pending and so they are not included in the third-quarter figure. Another pending deal that could boost the stats is Oracle's $7.4 billion purchase of Sun, which is being reviewed by European regulators.

A shortage of M&A activity as well as a slowdown in the IPO market has made it difficult for new technology companies to secure venture capital funding, because investors are wary of putting money into new companies when they haven't received liquidity on prior investments. The venture capital industry will continue to shrink dramatically over the next three to five years, according to the National Venture Capital Association (“NVCA”).

But as long as the stock market doesn't crash again, the tech industry should see healthy levels of acquisitions and IPOs in 2010, says an analyst at Dow Jones. "There's been a pretty torrid pace of tech deals in the second half of 2009. Even if the stock market can just bumble along where it is, we think M&A will continue to increase its pace." As the market stabilizes, it's easier to determine a fair price for an acquisition, reported the analyst at Dow Jones.

"2009 was kind of an odd year because the macroeconomic environment was so uncertain," Dow Jones reports. "The uncertainty and instability is always a problem when you think about making big decisions about mergers and acquisitions. A degree of stability next year should definitely help."

Many small start-ups that were nearly ready for an IPO but did not go public because of economic conditions are likely to take the plunge in the first half of 2010. This in turn will drive further M&A activity as big companies go for takeovers to pre-empt the IPOs.

One of the next logical questions is which types of tech companies will do the buying in 2010, and what types of companies will they take over.

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are potentially hot properties in the social networking industry. Creating financial value in Facebook and Twitter will be a challenge, however, and therefore the list of companies willing to shell out big bucks for the sites is limited, Armstrong said. Armstrong believes LinkedIn may have more value to potential acquirers because the site is built around a quite significant type of transaction – the hiring of new employees.

In the enterprise market, Xerox-ACS, Dell-Perot and HP-EDS are examples of big tech vendors buying IT services firms, part of a trend in which IT vendors are seeking to become one-stop-shopping destinations. Oracle, a software company, is attempting to buy Sun, a hardware company, and HP is trying to become more like Cisco by purchasing switch and router vendor 3Com.

The convergence of historically segregated markets like networking, storage and server technologies, and convergence of hardware with software and services, is likely to trigger further acquisitions, Fisher says. Customers are demanding better pricing and vendor and product consolidation, putting the squeeze on pure-play vendors competing against larger, diversified product and service providers, he says.

Trying to predict unpredictable events like mergers and acquisitions "is a great way to make yourself look stupid," Armstrong says, noting that analyst forecasts often turn out to be wrong. Many of the big vendors don't have an obvious need for a giant transaction along the lines of Oracle-Sun, so it's hard to say which companies are likely to pull off a blockbuster deal, he said."Does Cisco need to buy anything now? No. Does HP? No. Does IBM? No. They might be opportunistic and snap up something small, but they all have big, complete portfolios. There's nothing that screams out 'how can they compete without X'?" Armstrong says.

Still, there are interesting cases like Juniper. Many of Juniper's investors would likely be happy if Cisco bought the company, but assuming that doesn't happen perhaps Juniper would bulk up itself by taking over competitors Riverbed, F5 or Blue Coat, he says.

More broadly, interest in healthcare IT and the desire of tech companies to expand market presence in China are factors likely to create more M&A activity.

Ultimately, the downturn in 2009 will just be seen as a temporary interruption of a longer-term trend toward industry consolidation through mergers and acquisitions, Fisher says.

"Our perspective is this is basically the continuation of what's been a five-year trend in which the technology industry in general, which is consolidation," he says. "We view that as having been interrupted by the recession. At least in the last two quarters, that consolidation wave has reignited and we're seeing increases in activity and overall deal volumes and values as a result. In a broad sense, we no reason to expect that won't continue."


Gartner Says IT Spending to Rebound in 2010 with 3.3 Percent Growth After Worst Year Ever in 2009

The IT industry is exiting its worst year ever, as worldwide IT spending is on pace to decline 5.2 percent, according to Gartner. When the recovery does settle in, Silicon Valley will no longer be in the driver's seat.

Worldwide enterprise IT spending will struggle more with IT spending dropping 6.9 percent. The IT industry will return to growth with 2010 IT spending forecast to total $3.3 trillion, a 3.3 percent increase from 2009.

Gartner provided that while IT spending will increase next year, they cautioned IT leaders not to be overly optimistic. “While the IT industry will return to growth in 2010, the market will not recover to 2008 revenue levels before 2012,” said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of Research. “2010 is about balancing the focus on cost, risk, and growth. For more than 50 percent of CIOs the IT budget will be 0 percent or less in growth terms. It will only slowly improve in 2011.”

• The computing hardware market has struggled more than other segments with worldwide hardware spending forecast to total $317 billion in 2009, a 16.5 percent decline. In 2010, spending on hardware spending will be flat.

• Worldwide telecom spending is on pace to decline 4 percent in 2009 with revenue of nearly $1.9 trillion. In 2010, telecom spending is forecast to grow 3.2 percent.

• Worldwide IT services spending is expected to total $781 billion in 2009, and it is forecast to grow 4.5 percent in 2010.

• Worldwide software spending is forecast to decline 2.1 percent in 2009, and the segment is projected to grow 4.8 percent in 2010.

On a regional basis, emerging regions will resume strong growth. “By 2012, the accelerated IT spending and culturally different approach to IT in these economies will directly influence product features, service structures, and the overall IT industry. Silicon Valley will not be in the driver’s seat anymore,” Gartner’s Mr. Sondergaard said.

From a budget perspective, there are three important items that IT leaders must consider in 2010:

A Shift from Capital Expenditure to Operational Expenditure in the IT Budget — Concepts such as cloud services will accelerate this shift. IT costs become scalable and elastic. CIOs need to model the economic impact of IT on the overall financial performance of an organization. For public companies, they must show how IT improves earnings per share (EPS).

Impact of the Increased Age of IT Hardware — With delayed purchases of servers, PCs and printers likely to continue into 2010, organizations must start to assess the impact of increased equipment failure rates, and if current financial write-off periods are still appropriate. Approximately 1 million servers have had their replacement delayed by a year. That is 3 percent of the global installed base. In 2010, it will be at least 2 million. “If replacement cycles do not change, almost 10 percent of the server installed base will be beyond scheduled replacement be 2011,” Mr. Sondergaard of Gartner said. “That will impact enterprise risk. CFOs need to understand this dynamic, and it’s the responsibility of the CIO to convey this in a way the CFO understands.”

IT Must Learn to Build Compelling Business Cases — 2010 marks the year in which IT needs to demonstrate true line of sight to business objectives for every investment decision. IT leaders can no longer look at IT as a percentage of revenue. CIOs must benchmark IT according to business impact.

Gartner’s Mr. Sondergaard said three additional topics that were important in 2009 will continue to dominate IT leaders’ agendas in 2010. These three topics include:

Business Intelligence — Users will continue to expand their investments in this area with the focus moving from “in here” to “out there.”

Virtualization — IT leaders should not just invest in the server and data center environment, but in the entire infrastructure. In 2010, users will create the cornerstone for the cloud infrastructure. They will enable the infrastructure to move from owned to shared.

Social Media — Organizations are starting to scale their efforts in this space. The technologies are improving and organizations realize this is not only about digital natives. It’s about all client segments including the most significant: the population in the next 10 years, the above 60 year old generations.

While those topics are key to IT agendas today, Mr. Sondergaard highlighted three themes that will become important going forward. They include:

Context-Aware Computing — This is the concept of leveraging information about the end user to improve the quality of the interaction. Emerging context-enriched services will use location, presence, social attributes, and other environmental information to anticipate an end user’s immediate needs, offering more sophisticated, situation-aware and usable functions.

Operational Technology (OT) — OT is devices, sensors, and software used to control or monitor physical assets and processes in real-time to maintain system integrity. The rapid growth of OT is increasing the need for a unified view of information covering business process and control systems. OT will become a mainstream focus for all organizations.

Pattern-Based Strategy — This is a new model about implementing a framework to proactively seek, model, and adapt to leading indicators, often termed “weak” signals, that form patterns in the marketplace, and to exploit them for competitive advantage. A Pattern-Based Strategy will allow an organization to not only better understand what’s happening now in terms of demand, but also to detect leading indicators of change, and to indentify and quantify risks emerging from new patterns rather than continuing to focus on lagging indicators of performance.

In Technology, transformative deals are the goal and “the battle over the data center and end-to-end services continues to drive the larger players.” Smaller players with intellectual property that can be leveraged will be a fit for large technology companies. Simultaneously, there will be consolidation of smaller and weaker companies, with a particular highlight on semiconductors.

In media and entertainment, strategic buyers are expected to focus on content and distribution buyouts, as well as opportunities in new media.

On the IPO front, there is expected to be more private equity firms continuing to pursue exiting portfolio companies through IPOs in 2010. That is on the heels of Q4-2009 being the most active private equity IPO-exit strategy since 2007. The big question, and risk, is of course a double-dip. As long as no significant equity market correction occurs, PwC is looking for IPO activity to gain in 2010.


The 10 Biggest Tech Mergers and Acquisitions of 2009


The top 10 mergers and acquisitions in the network industry in 2009 all cracked the billion-dollar barrier, and involved vendors in hardware, IT services, collaboration, storage, wireless infrastructure and other segments. IT behemoths such as Oracle, Cisco, Dell, HP, EMC and IBM were among the biggest spenders, according to Network World.


Here are the top 10 acquisitions from 2009 based on publicly disclosed transaction values, including some deals that are still pending and may not be completed until 2010.

1. Oracle-Sun: $7.4 billion

It seems a long time ago that Oracle announced its blockbuster deal to purchase the struggling Sun Microsystems, giving the industry's largest database software vendor entry into the server and storage markets. The acquisition, still pending, was announced in April, and may even be blocked because European regulators are contending that combining Oracle's technology with Sun's open source MySQL database would violate competition laws. Oracle-Sun is by no means a done deal, but if it goes through it would give Larry Ellison new ammunition against Microsoft (in the database market) and against big hardware vendors such as IBM, HP and Dell.


2. Xerox-Affiliated Computer Services: $6.4 billion

In one fell swoop Xerox was able to triple its services revenue from $3.5 billion to $10 billion a year with the purchase of business process outsourcer Affiliated Computer Services. The agreement, announced in September, combines 74,000 ACS employees with Xerox's staff of 54,000, which runs the company's longtime photocopier business and various document management technologies and services. Xerox believes ACS will help it penetrate new markets without huge amounts of overlap, saying that only about 20% of the companies' customers are common to both businesses.


3. Dell-Perot Systems: $3.9 billion

Just days before Xerox's big move, Dell announced an agreement to buy Perot Systems, another major IT services firm founded by Ross Perot. Dell is betting that Perot will help it become a leading services company, and allow it to sell more hardware to existing Perot customers, many of whom are in the healthcare and government industries. Dell's purchase can also be seen as a response to rival HP's $13.9 billion acquisition the previous year of EDS -- another services company founded by Perot.

4. Cisco-Tandberg: $3.4 billion

Cisco, already a major player in collaboration products with WebEx and TelePresence, signed an agreement in October to purchase videoconferencing vendor Tandberg, which makes both video devices and network infrastructure products. The acquisition, if completed, could have both a direct and indirect impact on Cisco's bottom line, because expanded use of videoconferencing may increase network traffic, letting Cisco sell more switches and routers.

The deal, announced in October, is still pending. Shareholders initially objected to the acquisition but Cisco now appears to have won enough support to complete the merger.

5. Cisco-Starent Networks: $2.9 billion

Cisco's multibillion dollar purchase of Starent, announced in October, boosts the vendor's IP-based mobile infrastructure for several types of wireless networks, including LTE and WiMAX. Cisco had already made an investment in WiMAX with the $330 million purchase of Navini Networks in 2007, and a supply contract with Clearwire in 2009. But LTE is gaining steam as well, with both Verizon and AT&T saying they will use LTE for their 4G networks. Starent's technology has been deployed by more than 100 mobile operators in 45 countries.

6. HP-3Com: $2.7 billion

HP is launching an assault on Cisco in the data center networking and convergence markets with its purchase of 3Com, a maker of switches, routers and security products. The deal, announced in November, gives HP a core switch, the H3C 12500, to compete against Cisco's Nexus 7000, as well as significant market presence in China. But the acquisition, which is facing a shareholder lawsuit, also suffers from overlap at the low end of the companies' switching lines and in wireless networking.

7. EMC-Data Domain: $2.1 billion

EMC had to outfox rival NetApp to make this top 10 list, as the storage vendor won a six-week bidding war to purchase Data Domain and gain new technology in the data de-duplication market. De-duplication helps companies save money by reducing data storage needs, which is why both EMC and NetApp believe it will play a major role in the storage market in the coming years. NetApp originally had a $1.5 billion signed agreement to purchase Data Domain, but EMC swooped in and kept raising the price until the smaller NetApp could no longer afford to stay in the bidding.

8. Emerson-Avocent: $1.2 billion

Emerson is expanding its IT operations management portfolio with the addition of Avocent, which makes software, hardware and embedded technologies designed to simplify management of complex data centers. Emerson said Avocent's configuration and monitoring technologies are complementary to its own power, energy management and cooling systems, and will thus help customers tackle the growing problem of energy inefficiency. The acquisition, which will also expand Emerson's capabilities in the KVM switching market, is expected to close around Jan. 1, 2010.

9. IBM-SPSS: $1.2 billion

IBM is spending more than $1 billion to expand its analytics software capabilities, with SPSS and its predictive analytics tools that help companies mine historical business data to identify future trends. "IBM sees potential applications for SPSS tools in helping financial services companies retain customers, preventing crime and picking the optimal site for a new store or factory," the IDG News Service reported in July when the acquisition was announced. The purchase is just the latest step in IBM's strategy of bolstering its line of business analytics tools. Previously, Big Blue acquired data discovery technology from Exeros and paid $5 billion for business intelligence vendor Cognos.

10. Ericsson-Nortel Networks' wireless assets: $1.13 billion

Ericsson won a bidding war over the wireless assets of bankrupt Nortel Networks, beating out offers from Nokia Siemens Networks, the private equity firm MatlinPatterson and Research in Motion. Specifically, Ericsson won Nortel's CDMA and LTE wireless networking business, allowing the Swedish company to strengthen its presence in North America. "Nortel customers in North America that will now be supplied by Ericsson include Verizon Wireless, Sprint, U.S. Cellular, Bell Canada, Leap and Telus," Network World reported when the deal was announced in July. Because of the Nortel purchase and other strategic deals, Ericsson will have 14,000 employees and $5 billion in revenue from North America.



NABE Economists predict GDP growth of 3.2 percent in 2010

Reaffirming last month's call that the Great Recession is over, panelists for the National Assn. for Business Economics (“NABE”) have marked up their predictions for economic growth in 2010 and expect performance to exceed its long-term trend. "While the recovery has been jobless so far, that should soon change. Within the next few months, companies should be adding instead of cutting jobs," said NABE President Lynn Reaser. Panelists predict a relatively sluggish consumer upturn but look for a sizable housing rebound, low inflation, and further rise in stock prices. Importantly, panelists are mostly (though not entirely) optimistic that the Federal Reserve's policies will not lead to higher inflation.

At the same time, NABE panelists are "extremely" concerned about high federal deficits over the next five years.

The fourth quarter of 2009 is now slated for a 3.0 percent pace of real GDP growth and 2010 is predicted to experience a gain of 3.2 percent over its four quarters. For the two years combined growth is expected to be one-half of a percentage point above the forecast made in October. Economic growth is projected to slightly exceed its trend pace-which NABE panelists estimate at 2.7 percent-over the next five quarters.

Real GDP growth should also be enough to recover losses from the recession and return output to an all-time high by the end of 2010, the panelists said.

NABE panelists believe the end of net employment losses is near, with modest declines during the fourth quarter followed by a "bottom" in the first quarter of 2010 and gains thereafter. Still, given the severity of employment losses during the past two years, most panelists (61 percent) do not expect a complete recovery of the previously lost jobs until 2012. Additionally, the unemployment rate is predicted to remain stubbornly high, averaging 9.6 percent in the final quarter of next year. When asked to rank "concerns" over the next five-year period, panelists ranked high unemployment second only to the federal deficit.

The November 2009 NABE Outlook presents the consensus of macroeconomic forecasts made by a panel of 48 professional economic forecasters. The survey, covering the outlook for 2009 and 2010, was taken October 24-November 5, 2009.

---------------------------------------
Generation Equity Advisors, LLC is an independent M&A advisory firm focused exclusively on the technology and digital media industry sectors.

For further information, refer to the company’s website at:

http://www.generationequityadvisors.com/



Contact info:

Aaron Solganick
aaron@generationequityadvisors.com

President and Managing Director
8391 Beverly Blvd, Ste 480
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(310) 465-8940 Direct



Sources: Gartner, Computer World, NABE, NVCA, Network World, Generation Equity Advisors Research, Capital IQ

Venture exits were the slowest in five years for 2008

Hopefully a little New Year’s Eve champagne helped soften venture capitalists’ view of 2008. But when they return to their offices, U.S. VC’s might heave a sigh of relief when they turn their calendars to 2009.

That’s because 2008 was the slowest in five years for initial public offerings and merger and acquisition exits. Dow Jones VentureSource confirmed that bad news in its quarterly study of venture liquidity.

Venture-backed companies generated $24.1 billion in liquidity via IPOs and M&A in 2008, a 58 percent decline versus $57.6 billion the prior year. M&A also fell sharply, dropping 54 percent to $23.5 billion in deals for 325 venture-backed companies. The $3.9 billion of M&A activity for 65 companies in the fourth quarter was the lowest quarterly transaction number in nine years.“Overall, the median amount paid for a VC-backed company in 2008 was roughly $45 million—half of the median $90 million paid in 2007,” Jessica Canning, global research director for VentureSource, said in a statement. “Since the fourth quarter of 2007, we’ve seen the median acquisition price drop steadily from quarter to quarter in lock-step with the decline of M&A transactions.”The top fourth quarter M&A deal was eBay’s $945 million acquisition of online transaction firm Bill Me Later, while the No. 1 deal of the year was Dell’s $1.4 billion of Equalogic, a data storage company.Among the companies that mounted an IPO in 2008, the median amount of venture funding fell 19 percent to $56 million. The median period it took companies to reach liquidity climbed to 8.3 years versus 7.2 years in 2007.


Source: RedHerring.com

Wall Street is Crashing....What's Next for Technology Mergers?

Current Global Technology M&A Environment

by Aaron Solganick, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Generation Equity Advisors LLC

Okay, so we are facing a bit of doom and gloom these days. Wall Street is crashing and the US Congress finally passed the $700 Billion (USD) financial bailout legislation last week. As investor anxiety deepened despite the bailout package, the Fed announced that it would double its auctions of cash to banks to as much as $900 billion, pay banks interest on reserves and consider further actions as needed. In clogged credit markets, the London interbank offered rate, which banks charge one another for overnight loans, shot up in midday trade to 2.37%, from Friday's close of 2%. However, in a sign of mild improvement, the rate for three-month loans fell 5 basis points to 4.29%. Stock markets fell across Europe on fears that the financial crisis was accelerating and that European governments' uncoordinated response would leave the regions' lenders vulnerable. The increasingly drastic steps being taken by the U.S. and European Union don't appear to be having a significant effect on the psyche of bankers who have all but ended lending to each other, thereby freezing credit markets.

Where do we go from here?
Now What?
How does it effect technology M&A?

From a macro-level view, the technology industry is still alive and kicking, although slowing (in some ways).

Forrester Research cut its 2009 U.S. technology spending growth forecast to 6.1 percent from 9.4 percent, the research group said on Tuesday, but raised its 2008 growth forecast to 5.4 percent from 3.4 percent.

The economic slowdown Forrester expected in the first half of this year is now expected in the second half of 2008 or the first half of next year. "(This) means that total U.S. IT (information technology) spending for 2008 will be more robust than we first predicted, but that an expected recovery in 2009 will be postponed," Forrester said in a statement.

According to Capital IQ, deal flow in the technology sector has approached $119.32 billion and 3,666 for YTD 2008, versus $205.54 billion and 3,846 for the same period last year.

Capital IQ also reported that multiples, including Total Enterprise Value (TEV) to Revenue averaged 1.28x and the TEV to EBITDA averaged 8.47x for the trailing-twelve months ending Sept 30, 2008. As for the latest period (Q3 2008) the average technology deal equaled a TEV / Revenue of 1.23x and a TEV / EBITDA of 7.77x, a slight drop overall.

There are still many good opportunities for both buyers and sellers in the potential slowdown. If you've got a good quality company, it's a wonderful time to sell. Private equity will have a flight to quality and still currently has a ton of money they need to use and place it before the end of the year. For lower middle-market transactions that are not reliant on the credit markets, the environment is still decent overall.


“IPOs Hit a 30-Year Low”

In Silicon Valley, investors believe technology firms will survive the economic meltdown, but they’re concerned about the lack of IPOs. There were zero IPO’s completed by venture backed companies in the second quarter of 2008. It's the first time since 1978 that the industry posted a goose egg, and it represents a huge drop from the 25 companies that went public during the same period in 2007. The latest data have the National Venture Capital Association warning of a "capital markets crisis." NVCA president Mark Heesen is also concerned that the total value of merger and acquisition deals, another key outlet for VC-backed companies, was 40 percent less in the second quarter than in the same period in 2007.

Not that everyone didn't see it coming, but guess what? The third quarter stank for venture capitalists seeking to reap the rewards of their investments. In fact, it was the worst period in five years for VC exits. So says new data from Dow Jones VentureSource.

According to the stats, VC-backed companies generated $4.57 billion in liquidity for their backers via initial public offerings or M&A. That's a 66% drop from the year-earlier period. There were 66 acquisitions worth $4.4 billion; the lone IPO was the $153 million debut of Rackspace Hosting Inc. That said, the median time until a VC-backed company gets bought has stretched to 6.1 years, while the price fetched has nearly been halved compared to last year. Ouch.

At its recent meeting in Silicon Valley, the National Venture Capital Association announced it will organize task forces of financial experts to come up with solutions for reviving the IPO market and present the ideas to the new White House Administration after the first of the year.

Meanwhile, we attended the recent annual Oracle OpenWorld conference and learned that Oracle president Charles Phillips suggested that over the next five years, the level of acquisition activity could be similar to what Oracle has accomplished in the past 44 months, which amounts to several Billion dollars in M&A spending. "We have access to innovation around the world because of our balance sheet and acquisition strategy." In a sense, he said, Oracle "is the IPO market for the software industry." Oracle builds on its enterprise software solution which includes databases (where its an industry behemoth), middleware and applications.


Enterprise Software Industry M&A Summary for Q3 2008

The Software industry sector remained active for Q3 2008 with a tilt towards the major software houses claiming the bulk of the number of acquisitions (and buyers).

Most recent Enterprise Software M&A transactions announced in Q3 2008 include:

Oct 6, 2008 - Document-capture software provider Kofax has acquired electronic invoice and document-processing software company OptiInvoice Digital for 2m euros ($2.71m) cash with further conditional payments in the range of 1.31m euros ($1.77m) to 10m euros ($13.6m) over four years. OptiInvoice Digital, which is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, develops software that allows electronic invoices and other documents to be digitally encrypted and transmitted through email and other data streams in standard text, image, and XML formats, eliminating the need to print, mail, receive, and process paper-based documents.

Oct 3, 2008 - Oracle has acquired UK-based 3D retail software provider Advanced Visual Technology for an undisclosed sum. AVT's products enable retailers to design and plan retail floor space in real time with a current photo-realistic view of each store. On completion of the deal, AVT's employees will join Oracle's Retail Global Business Unit. Duncan Angove, senior vice president and general manager at Oracle Retail, said: "Adding AVT to our portfolio of retail applications further builds on our strategy of providing broad and deep industry solutions that help transform the economics of retail businesses. This will help enable retailers to gain rapid and profitable ROI from every inch of store space and help Oracle further realize its vision for insight-driven retailing."

Oct 1, 2008 - US-based private equity firm Bedford Funding has acquired talent management software provider Authoria for $63.1m. The firm, specializing in investments in the software and IT services sectors, will make an additional $8m investment in Authoria to enhance its marketing and sales initiatives and accelerate overall corporate growth.

Sept 23, 2008 - Cisco has agreed to acquire open-source instant-messaging start-up Jabber for an undisclosed sum to enhance its unified communications and collaboration product portfolio. Colorado-based Jabber provides a messaging platform that supports different devices, users, and applications and allows collaboration across Microsoft Office Communications Server, IBM Sametime, AOL AIM, Google, and Yahoo.

After the acquisition, Jabber will become a part of the Cisco Collaboration Software Group (CSG). Cisco said the acquisition will allow it to incorporate Jabber’s presence and messaging services in the network and offer aggregation capabilities to users through both on-premise and on-demand applications across multiple platforms including Cisco WebEx Connect and Unified Communications.

The acquisition is part of the company's "build, buy, and partner" strategy to move into new markets and capture key market transitions. Earlier this month, it acquired e-mail and calendaring software provider PostPath for $215m. Other recent acquisitions by the company include WebEx, IronPort, and Securent.

Sept 18, 2008 - Netherlands-based multimedia company Wolters Kluwer has acquired German tax software provider Addison Software from European private equity investor HgCapital for approximately 200m euros ($284m). Addison provides software applications for tax advisers, CPAs, and medium-sized companies. It generated 48m euros ($68.2m) revenue in fiscal 2007 and has over 340 employees.

This is the third acquisition by Wolters Kluwer this year. Earlier this month, it acquired electronic clinical information company UpToDate to strengthen its health portfolio. In March, it acquired the accountants division of MYOB UK and MYOB Ireland to expand its presence in the UK market.

Sept 16, 2008 - Enterprise systems management software vendor Quest Software has acquired NetPro Computing, a provider of optimization tools for Microsoft environments, for $78.7m. Quest said the acquisition will enable it to offer products to migrate, manage, and secure Microsoft Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint, and SQL Server environments. It plans to retain key members of NetPro's management team and will continue to offer products from both companies independently. The companies are expected to announce the roadmap for new products on October 15. The acquisition follows Quest's January purchase of PassGo and last year's acquisition of Windows-based lifecycle management software developer ScriptLogic for $90m.

Sept 8, 2008 - Enterprise content management software vendor Open Text has acquired document-centric process automation software provider Captaris for $131m. Captaris provides document and data capture applications, as well as business information and delivery applications built on Microsoft's .NET framework that integrate, process, and automate the flow of content. Waterloo, Canada-based Open Text said Captaris's offerings will be integrated with its invoice management applications that work with SAP and Oracle.

In March, Bellevue, Wasington-based Captaris rejected a $4.75-per-share offer by private-equity firm Vector Capital. Open Text offered $4.80 per share.

John Shackleton, president and chief executive at Open Text, said: "Captaris's technology will strengthen Open Text's ECM solutions by providing another on-ramp for integrating content into our ECM solutions. We are committed to continuing Captaris's products, and partner and customer support."

In July, Open Text also acquired eMotion, a provider of hosted business applications for managing digital media assets and marketing content, and Spicer that specializes in file format viewer applications for desktop applications, integrated business process management systems, and reprographics.

Sept 4, 2008 - Oracle has agreed to acquire ClearApp, a provider of application management products for composite applications built on SOA platforms. Financial terms of the acquisition, which is expected to close in the second half of 2008, were not disclosed.

ClearApp's products identify potential problems in the code of an application and how the problem can affect other applications. The company's software works with Oracle's Enterprise Manager product line and IBM's WebSphere. Leng Leng Tan, vice president of applications and systems management at Oracle, said: "As customers deploy more SOA-based applications, the task of effectively managing them becomes paramount. With the addition of ClearApp's technology to the Oracle Enterprise Manager product family, our customers are expected to get continuous and uninterrupted top-down views of their business services and applications, helping them maximize service availability while reducing IT operations costs."

This is the seventh acquisition by Oracle this year. It acquired 11 companies last year.

Aug 21, 2008 - Salesforce.com has paid $31.5m to acquire InStranet, a provider of knowledge management technology for call centers. InStranet categorizes customer information into data dimensions, such as their geographic location and the specific products they have purchased.

Salesforce.com said the acquisition will enable it to expand its Salesforce CRM Customer Service & Support portfolio and will also add approximately 350,000 global call center agents. It will continue to support InStranet customers and will integrate InStranet's management team and employees into the company.

Marc Benioff, chairman and chief executive at Salesforce.com, said: "We're excited to add this unmatched technology to our SaaS applications and Force.com platform. Not only will it make our service and support offering stronger for our customers and further their success, it will help catapult our growth in the customer service and support space."

Aug 12, 2008 - JDA Software has agreed to acquire supply chain management software and services provider i2 Technologies for $346m. Hamish Brewer, chief executive at JDA, said: "By acquiring i2 we double our addressable market in manufacturing to include discrete manufacturing, complementing our current market leadership in process manufacturing and strengthening our retail and transportation management presence."

JDA said it expects the acquisition to produce annual cost savings of approximately $20m.


Most recent Security Software M&A transactions announced in Q3 2008 include:

Sept 24, 2008 - California-based security software company McAfee has agreed to acquire Secure Computing for approximately $465m to expand its network security product portfolio and customer base. Secure Computing provides network security products including Webwasher that filters corporate web traffic, Ironmail encrypted mail servers, Sidewinder firewall appliances, and SnapGear virtual private network (VPN) devices to businesses of all sizes.

Upon completion of the acquisition by the end of the fourth quarter, Secure Computing’s technologies will be integrated into McAfee’s Network Security product business unit and will be headed by Secure Computing’s current president and chief executive Dan Ryan. McAfee said the acquisition will strengthen its position in security risk management (SRM) and will enable it to provide a complete network security portfolio including intrusion prevention, firewall, web security, e-mail security and data protection, and network access control.

The acquisition follows the company’s August acquisition of risk management tools provider Reconnex for $46m. Last year, it acquired Israel-based data protection company Onigma for $20m and encryption and access control vendor SafeBoot for $350m.

Dave DeWalt, chief executive and president of McAfee, said: "We expect the pending combination of McAfee and Secure Computing will create annual projected combined revenue of just under $500m in the network security segment of our SRM portfolio. We believe that this pending acquisition will allow us to immediately establish a leading and highly competitive position in the network security space."

Sept 24, 2008 - California-based networking equipment vendor Netgear has agreed to acquire integrated security appliances firm CP Secure for $17.5m to enhance its security applications portfolio for SMBs. As per the deal, the company will pay $14m in cash for China-based CP Secure's assets and an additional $3.5m following closure of the acquisition. CP Secure has an engineering center in Nanjing, China, and provides integrated security applications to protect organizations from internet-originated web and e-mail malware threats. As part of the acquisition expected to close in the fourth quarter, the company will acquire all the pending patents, proprietary technologies, customer base, current products, and products in development.

Aug 20, 2008 - Security and storage software company Symantec has acquired for an undisclosed sum Australia-based PC Tools, which provides privacy and security software for Windows users. On completion of the deal, which is expected by the end of the year, it will continue offering its products under the PC Tools brand and maintain separate operations within Symantec's consumer business unit. Simon Clausen, chief executive of PC Tools, will lead the operation and will report to Janice Chaffin, president of consumer products at Symantec.

Symantec said the PC Tools' PC utilities software and point security technologies will enable it to expand its reach in emerging markets with an array of go-to-market capabilities. Symantec's Chaffin said: "The combination of our two companies will provide additional value and choice for consumers worldwide to better enable and protect their digital life. By adding PC Tools, we build on the market-leading success of Symantec's consumer offerings and firmly position ourselves for continued incremental growth in a rapidly expanding market."

Earlier in August, Symantec also acquired nSuite Technologies for an undisclosed amount.

July 30, 2008 - Endpoint security and control software vendor Sophos has announced plans to acquire German enterprise data security applications provider Utimaco Safeware for 217m euros ($340m). As part of the acquisition, Sophos has acquired Investcorp Technology Partners' 24.99% stake in the company.

It said Utimaco will become a new Sophos business unit focused on data security, and Utimaco's SafeGuard brand will be retained. Steve Munford, chief executive at Sophos said: "Companies of all sizes are looking to protect against both external and internal threats, with one manageable solution. Integrating endpoint protection, network access control, and encryption provides us with a great platform for innovation as the market continues to focus on securing and controlling information."

The acquisition is expected to be completed in October.


IT Services M&A Summary for Q3 2008

The IT Services industry sector remained active for Q3 2008 with a tilt towards Europe and India claiming the bulk of the number of acquisitions (and buyers).

Most recent IT Services M&A transactions announced in Q3 2008 include:

September 30, 2008 - India-based IT services company HCL Technologies has made a counter bid for UK-based SAP consultancy Axon Group for approximately 441.1m pounds ($810.8m), in response to Infosys’ offer of $753.1m. HCL said the acquisition would complement its application and infrastructure management capabilities, as well as expand its customer base. In August, Infosys Technologies made a cash offer of 407.1m pounds ($753.1m) for Axon to expand its consulting practice. HCL’s counter offer is at an 8.3% premium over Infosys’s offer. Axon employs approximately 2,000 people and serves customers across the UK, North America, and Asia, and reported net profit of 20.2m pounds ($37.4m) on revenue of 204.5m pounds ($378.3m) for fiscal 2007.

September 24, 2008 - US-based systems integrator Ciber has agreed to acquire India-based IT services provider Iteamic for an undisclosed sum to expand its Indian operations. Iteamic, with approximately 200 employees, manages projects off-shored by US companies and expects its fiscal 2009 revenue to be between $7m and $8m. The acquisition, to be closed in 30 days, is expected to expand Ciber's capabilities to handle off-shored projects from the US and Europe.

September 23, 2008 - US-based private equity firm Providence Equity Partners and Manila-based conglomerate Ayala have announced the acquisition of Philippines-based outsourced services vendor eTelecare Global Solutions for $290m. Under the deal, Ayala's BPO investment affiliate LiveIt which already holds 22% in eTelecare, will acquire up to 100% of its outstanding common shares. eTelecare provides BPO services for voice-based and non-voice-based customer care from delivery centers in the Philippines, North America, and Latin America. It currently has a headcount of 10,000 with 2,000 based in Arizona.

September 22, 2008 - India-based IT services provider HCL Technologies has announced plans to spend as much as $2bn to acquire companies in the US or Europe by 2011. The company has identified a three-fold acquisition strategy: intellectual property acquisition, geographic acquisition, and transformation acquisition, in its aim to be among the top three global vendors by 2011. The company is looking for acquisitions of $100m or less to acquire intellectual property for the company. It is also planning acquisitions in Japan and Germany to expand its geographic reach. It recently announced plans to acquire three to four captive BPOs in the Asia-Pacific region, specializing in banking and financial services. The company has close to $600m in cash reserves.

September 17, 2008 - Spanish IT services provider Telvent has acquired US-based DTN Holding Company for $445m to strengthen its position in the business information services sector. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter. Telvent said DTN provides information services to the agriculture, energy, and environment industries and expects revenue of $180m for fiscal 2008. Telvent will gain access to DTN's library of proprietary content and solutions, and a real-time data delivery platform. DTN's management team will continue to run the company.

September 16, 2008 - Netherlands-based IT services provider Ordina has acquired Belgian SAP specialist E-Chain Management for an undisclosed sum. Ordina said E-Chain has been providing SAP-based business automation services since 2001, and generated revenue of approximately 13.6m euros ($19.4m) in 2007. Bart Embrechts, director of E-Chain Management, said: "Joining Ordina will allow us to capture a larger slice of the Benelux market. What makes our joining forces especially interesting is Ordina's specialization in application outsourcing. From now on, we can offer a comprehensive service range, including wider technological expertise and solutions development." It is the latest of several acquisitions by Ordina in its bid to dominate the Belgian ICT market by 2010. Since 2005, it has acquired numerous SAP and ICT specialists including Infra Design, Solidium, Vertis, Magentis, IBAS Group, EVO-Soft, Be Value, Bergson, Wisdom, and Iterum Services. Last year, it also acquired Belgian ITG Consulting Group and YoungWood IT Group. In addition, the company divested its Technical Automation and ApplicationNet units to focus on its core business of consulting, IT, and outsourcing.

September 10, 2008 - IT services vendor iGate plans to spin-off its Mastech IT staffing services and consulting services arm into an independent company. The said September 16 is the proposed date for the spin-off. After the spin-off Mastech will be a separate listed company with revenue of approximately $100m. All the shareholders of iGate will get Mastech shares by the end of September. The company has declared a dividend of one Mastech common stock for every 15 shares of iGate common stock. The company delisted its Indian subsidiary iGate Global Solutions last year. The company's staffing business is handled by Mastech and RPOworldwide.

September 9, 2008 - Indian IT Services firm Satyam is planning to make bigger acquisitions instead of smaller niche ones, according to a report in the Economic Times. The company has acquired six firms over the last three years, all in the sub-$50m price range, including the April 2005 purchase of US-based Citi Soft, a specialist consulting firm focusing on investment management for $38.7m, and its acquisition last year of UK-based consulting firm Nitor Global Solutions for $5.5m. Satyam CFO V Srinivas said the company is evaluating at least half a dozen acquisition targets at any point of time. "We are mainly looking companies in the US and Europe that are engaged in infrastructure managed services, engineering services, BPO, and consulting segments," he said. The slowdown in the US economy and low valuations of US-based firms could result in some targets becoming cheaper for acquisition by Indian companies. Satyam's cash reserves stood at INR 7,703 crores ($1.73bn) as of June 30, 2008.

September 1, 2008 - Indian IT services provider Tech Mahindra has acquired a 17.3% stake in systems integrator Servista as part of a strategic partnership to enable it to continue its European expansion.

August 29, 2008 - UK-based support services provider Serco Group has agreed to acquire US-based SI International, a provider of information services and network applications to the federal government. Serco will pay $423m and will assume debt of approximately $87.3m. SI International has 4,500 employees. Clients include the US Air Force, Army, Department of Defense, and 15 federal civilian agencies. The company said 99% of second-quarter revenue came from federal government contracts. It will be integrated with Serco's North American unit in Virginia. The combined entity will be headed by the unit's chairman and chief executive Ed Casey, and will have 11,500 employees and revenue of approximately $1.3bn. Serco said it expects the combined entity to provide annualized cost savings in excess of $10m from the end of the second full year of ownership. This acquisition is expected to be accretive to Serco's adjusted earnings in the first full year of ownership.

Ø August 20, 2008 - India-based IT services vendor ITC Infotech has expanded its footprint in the US with the acquisition of Pyxis Solutions through its US-based wholly owned unit ITC Infotech (USA). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but ITC Infotech said Pyxis will become a wholly owned unit of the company. Pyxis Solutions, which was founded in 2000, provides IT services for quality assurance, testing and automation focusing on STP/T+1, knowledge management, and outsourcing. Its customers include Merrill Lynch, Banker's Trust, Deutsche Bank, Citibank, Chase Manhattan Bank, AIG, Prudential Insurance, Double Click, and Sony.

August 7, 2008 - GFI Solutions, the Canadian subsidiary of French IT services vendor GFI Informatique, has acquired Bell Business Solutions, a subsidiary of Bell Canada. Bell Business Solutions provides business IT services for the municipal sector, and health, manufacturing, distribution, and printing industries across Canada. The company reported annual revenue of CAD 40m ($38m) and has 350 employees. After the acquisition is completed, it will operate under the name GFI Business Solutions. Bell Canada is selling off non-core businesses to streamline its operations to become a private company by the end of the year. Earlier this week it sold its defense, security, and aerospace unit to pilot trainer CAE for CAD 26m ($25m). Gilles Letourneau, president and chief executive at GFI Solutions, said: "In addition to consolidating our presence across Canada in the business solutions market, we anticipate significant potential for cross-selling our consulting services in the various target sectors."

August 6, 2008 - Aegis BPO, a part of Essar Group, has agreed to acquire Philippines-based back-office outsourcing provider PeopleSupport for $250m. PeopleSupport will be merged with Essar Services and will be renamed Aegis PeopleSupport. It will have an employee base of 29,000 across the Philippines, India, the US, and Costa Rica. PeopleSupport reported $150m revenue for the last financial year. It is the 11th acquisition by Aegis BPO in the last four years. It recently acquired the call center facility of AOL in Bangalore for $30m. The company has nine centers and generates 67% of its revenues from the US. The acquisition of PeopleSupport will add 15 new clients in the travel and transportation sector. Aparup Sengupta, chief executive and managing director at Aegis BPO, said: "The addition of PeopleSupport's high-performance operations in the Philippines and Costa Rica will enable Aegis BPO to become a leader."


July 29, 2008 - France-based IT services provider Capgemini has agreed to acquire the application services business of Getronics PinkRoccade, GPR, for 255m euros ($400.9m). GPR's Business Application Services BV division offers services including application development, maintenance, and management. It generates 40% of revenue from the Dutch public sector.

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Sources used in this blog publication include:

Generation Equity Advisors LLC Research
Factset Mergerstat
Thomson-Reuters
Datamonitor ComputerWire
DigitalMedia Wire
Capital IQ
Company Websites and Filings