Blog – April 2017

TM-the-PM’s election announcement last week caught most of us by surprise (even, rather pleasingly, most of the media). But what of the implications for Technology M&A? Some more uncertainty, yes, but we live in an uncertain world and with the techMARK All Share index up nearly 2% since this “shock” announcement it is hardly an indicator of panic.

One possible advantage of an election now is that we will not be subjected to an election campaign in 2020, which would have meant an awful lot of politics around the time of our ultimate exit from the EU.

Our belief is broadly that the technological revolution that most (if not all) industries are experiencing is going to carry on regardless and that this will continue to drive M&A activity. It is too early to know the impact that Brexit will ultimately have on the economy, but the UK will remain a significant player and technology will play an important part in this.

Interestingly some recently published research showed that technology acquisitions of UK businesses were split almost equally between European (incl UK) and US acquirers (Asia remains a small component). With a weaker pound, UK acquisitions are looking increasingly good value.