Since peaking at $1.5 trillion in 2021, tech transaction volume has plummeted, dropping to $544 billion last year, according to Dealogic. So far in 2024, that number sits at $465 billion.
This is the new world of tech M&A. Under the Biden administration, and more specifically Federal Trade Commission head Lina Khan, the biggest companies have been thwarted from pursuing large deals. In some cases, they've even walked away from smaller deals. AmazonSince peaking at $1.5 trillion in 2021, tech transaction volume has plummeted, dropping to $544 billion last year, according to Dealogic. So far in 2024, that number sits at $465 billion.
that Adobe leadership felt justified in pursuing Figma after the failure of its competing product design program. But regulators were taking a different view. Sergio Letelier, HPE's head of corporate development, said that when he and his team members advise Neri on a potential deal, they always discuss how regulators might treat it. While some transactions are taking longer to close than they would have previously,"the fundamentals of what is a problematic deal vs. what is not a problematic deal hasn't changed," Letelier said.said that Own should bolster free cash flow in the second year after the deal closed.
Since the Slack purchase, Salesforce has pursued only smaller deals, particularly after facing off with activist investors who pressured the company to put a renewed focus on profitability. Salesforce landed AI talent from buying Airkit and a Sales Cloud software add-on from Spiff. Idemoto said that's made Cisco more selective these days. Before the company announced its $27 billion purchase of data analytics software companylast September, he said he viewed the risk as absolutely worth taking. Splunk sat comfortably outside Cisco's core of networking equipment.The deal sailed through, even closing in March, six months ahead of schedule.That level of confidence would be difficult for the megacap companies as long as the FTC and DOJ are aggressively watching them.