Tag: Tech
Cooley’s 2023 Tech M&A Year in Review: An AI-Generated Glass Half Full
2023’s much-discussed downturn in mergers & acquisitions – with global M&A volume and value down 6% and 17%, respectively, from 2022 – was largely driven by the slowdown in the tech sector, with global tech M&A volumes down 51% year over year, while other sectors saw marked increases.[1] The headwinds […]
Cooley’s 2022 Tech M&A Year in Review
Tech M&A in 2022 was a tale of two halves. The year started off with a bang, with mega-deals such as Microsoft’s pending $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter and Broadcom’s pending $61 billion acquisition of VMware inked in quick succession. However, deal […]
President Biden’s Executive Order on Competition: Three Important Takeaways for Tech and Life Sciences Companies
On July 9, President Joe Biden issued an executive order on “Promoting Competition in the American Economy.” With 72 initiatives and directives by more than a dozen federal agencies, the order seeks to aggressively “reduce the trend of corporate consolidation, increase competition, and deliver concrete benefits to America’s consumers, workers, farmers, and small businesses.” […]
Cooley’s 2020 Tech M&A Year in Review
A Tale of Two Years While we continue to absorb and understand the worldwide pandemic shockwaves of 2020, trying to encapsulate the vicissitudes of the past year in an annual recap is daunting. Early weeks of the pandemic created an almost inconceivable shift in dealmaking – lawyers and advisors conditioned […]
Cooley’s 2019 Tech M&A Year in Review
In the wake of record-setting volume and value metrics in 2018, practitioners eyed the 2019 deal market with healthy skepticism. Despite a slight downward tick in momentum and overall deal statistics, 2019 remained a robust, dynamic and competitive market with tech deals outpacing other sectors in both volume and critical […]
2017 M&A Trends Series: Innovation Pressures Fuel M&A
So far this year, deal parties are approaching M&A with cautious optimism. This series of Cooley M&A blog posts include some brief observations that offer some M&A highlights over the past year and our thoughts for the year to come. Innovation Pressures Fuel M&A The WSJ has written about the rise […]
Why we Expect Private Equity to Invest More in Tech in 2017
With all the analysis on domestic and international political events and their potential impact on M&A trends, it’s easy to miss that 2016 represented the continuation of a meaningful paradigm shift in private equity. With increasing frequency, traditional private equity investors are focusing on tech. Even in the relatively slow […]
High-tech Mergers: Flying “High” on the Antitrust Enforcement Radar
The pace of strategic deal-making has electrified corporate America over the past year and has kept antitrust enforcers on their toes in analysing the potential competitive effects of these deals.
United States v. Bazaarvoice: A Cautionary Antitrust Tale for High-Tech Mergers
The recently concluded Department of Justice enforcement action against Bazaarvoice, Inc.’s 2012 acquisition of rival PowerReviews, Inc. is a reminder of important principles for antitrust enforcement in high-tech industries.