Yasmin Khodamoradi

The healthcare M&A market remained active, driven by our Connected Health Trend, as Press Ganey was taken private by Swedish PE EQT for over $2B at nearly 7x sales. Emmi, a patient engagement software provider, was picked up by Wolters Kluwer for $170M, adding patient-focused tools to its clinical suite. And HealthiestYou was acquired by Teladoc for over $150M at 15x revenue to extend its telemedicine services.

Thomas, what’s the story with IT Services?

Thomas Wright

Developed market valuations continued their years-long ascent, driven by the focused IT services trend. Emerging markets continued their convergence towards the developed, but still remained significantly higher.

Accenture, one of our top three acquirers, collected 20 focused IT service deals: from system integrators to security to an SCM consultancy, with one acquisition in Oceania, twelve in Europe, one in the middle East, five in North America and one in Asia. Accenture diversified across most of the major markets.

Security also invaded the rest of the IT sector, with Aquilent, a cloud service provider for the federal government, snapped up by Booz Allen for $250M. Siege, and its robust portfolio of security products, was rolled up into Nehemiah’s portfolio. And Pasadena-based Advancive was bought by Optiv to bolster its identity and access management practice.

With the Internet of Things maturing, traditional firms looked to inorganic growth to stay current. IoT specialists Infrastructure were acquired by Zones while Extensys sold its IoT division to the industry giant CompuCom.

M&A also created innovative IoT partnerships such as Portland’s Rivetry joining forces with Bluetooth module maker Rigado to unlock more advanced IoT capabilities.

Amanda Tallman

Valuations in the Consumer sector declined slightly following encouraging metrics through the third quarter. However, casual gaming remained stable in both sales and EBITDA valuations.

China continued to dominate gaming M&A across the globe. Corum client Jagex, publisher of classic MMO Runescape, was sold to Zhongji Holding, another example of a non-tech buyer diversifying into gaming. Tencent bought Finland’s Supercell for $8.5B in its largest-ever acquisition.

In the wagering space, Quebec-based DEQ Systems, a global supplier of table games to casinos, was acquired by Scientific Games for over $20M. London-based OpenBet was bought by NYX Gaming for over $250M to help gain a share of the regulated markets.

Wearables also saw a number of deals in 2016. Among them was ASICS acquisition of FitnessKeeper for $85 million, as they race to catch up with Adidas, Nike, and particularly UnderArmor. Ireland-based PlayerTek, a provider of athlete tracking systems was acquired for $2.7M by Australia’s Catapult. And Nokia found its own health and activity tracker with the purchase of Withings for $190M.

Facial animation and analysis was a particular focus for Facebook, which snapped up Masquerade and FacioMetrics. And through Oculus, it added The Eye Tribe, a developer of sensor-based eye tracking systems. 

In the world of virtual reality, VOKE was bought by Intel with hopes to enrich its sports content, and VR studio Surreal was acquired by media company STX with recent funding from Tencent.

Finally, travel sites reached out of the internet sector for consumer apps, with Tripadvisor buying Citymaps and Expedia acquiring photo sharing startup Trover.

What else happened in the Internet market?

This is a segment from Forecast 2017: Global Tech M&A Report (January) webcast. For more information, please visit Corum Group's Software M&A Webcast Archive