In our monthly webinars, we typically get a field report from at least one Corum representative, looking at a specific market segment, deal, region, etc. In February we heard from a number of Corum representatives, which gave a good overview of the significant activity that were seeing in the overall market at the moment.
According to Jon Scott, "Here in Europe were seeing a lot of pickup and buyer activity. Its as if some of them woke up after the new year with new mandates for inorganic growth. Some of the biggest technology firms in the world are going after some fairly small companies. In fact, we just received an additional letter of intent here in Europe from a huge technology firm on one of our clients."
Peter Andrews spoke to us from Canada, and was able to follow up on some of Jons thoughts, "A couple of weeks ago I introduced a small complex technology-centric company with some pretty unique intellectual properties to the market, and several of the multi-national tech giants were all over it. This just goes to show how innovative technology, effectively positioned in strategic markets, can overcome the expectations of size and scale that we typically associate with the interests of the larger players."
Rob Schram spoke about deal pacing, "Toward the end of 2012, we witnessed a bit of a logjam as buyers and sellers scrambled to put deals together in advance of the 2013 tax increases. For a particular client, the frantic pace brought a halt to due diligence negotiations in late December, but discussions with that buyer have now resumed and multiple additional contenders have additionally expressed interest as well. In the first six weeks of 2013, Ive seen unprecedented interest across the board from both strategic and financial buyers, within sectors that werent nearly as responsive eight months ago. 2013 looks like itll be a great year for M&A."