Regent: M&A activity in Europe on decline

But acquisition landscape is being dominated by big-value global deals involving European firms, market watcher claims

March marked the third successive month where the amount of European technology M&A deals declined, but big-value global deals involving European firms continue to dominate the landscape.

That is the view of market watcher Regent Associates in its March Monthly Briefing bulletin,which listed large-ticket deals such as the £1.27bn takeover of UK banking software firm Misys by Vista Equity Partners; and US vendor Quest Software and its $2bn (£1.25bn) takeover by Insight Ventures Partners.

Quest chairman and chief executive Vinny Smith will continue to lead the company and the senior management team will also remain. Smith said that as a private company, Quest will have “increased flexibility to drive innovation across product lines and execute its long-term strategy.

"This move to a private company will also create exciting career opportunities for our employees, while retaining our commitment to continuing to provide excellent service to our customers," he added.

Cisco was also mentioned after its $5bn purchase of UK digital video firm NDS. At the time Cisco said: “Acquiring NDS will broaden Cisco’s opportunities in the service provider market, expanding its reach into emerging markets, such as China and India, where NDS has an established customer footprint.”

James Calvert, managing partner at Regent, said: “For the third successive month, there was a decrease in European technology M&A activity in March in terms of the number of deals.

“However, $1bn-plus global TMT deals are still being announced and European companies continue to be involved in these mega deals. This is helping to stabilise the trend in the value of deals announced. Valuation multiples give a mixed message with the median price/sales ratio settling back to 1.2 and median price/earnings ratio recovering to 17.”