Morgan Stanley boss James Gorman is one of two executives nominated for appointment to Disney's board to shore up strength to defend against activist shareholder, to take effect February 2024.This was done after a "lengthy and comprehensive search". Former Group CEO of Sky, Jeremy Darroch, is the other nominee.
Thursday, 30 November 2023
Wednesday, 29 November 2023
Software to Dominate Technology Dealmaking - PwC
The great technology protagonist PwC expects software deals to dominate Tech M&A in 2H23, making up 70% of deals in 1H23. The appeal is the subscription based business model. The next biggest area is IT services, including cybersecurity, DevOps, digital transformation and low code segments.
PE still relishes Tech companies. Some big examples:
- Thoma Bravo's $8bn acquisition of San Mateo based Coupa Software (a business spend management platform which is "more than it seems" having grown through acquisitions, an interesting one being Llamasoft), which closed in February 2023 (Vista Equity Partners, the second-in-line bidder, lost out).
- Acquisition of events technology company Cvent by Blackstone and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, as well as existing stockholder Vista Equity Partners, for $4.6bn announced in March 2023 and closed in June 2023, leading to removal of its ticker CVT from the Nasdaq. Cvent was founded by legal eagle Reggie Aggarwal in 1999 and went public in 2013. It was subsequently taken private by Vista Equity Partners in 2016 for $1.65bn. It was then "Nasdaq'ed" in December 2021 before the latest take-private initiative from Blackstone.
AI and large language models are an emerging theme following the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, GPT standing for generative pre-trained transformer.
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