- Accenture has been the company’s top acquirer in the past 30 months. In 2019, it outdid itself, making a total of 24 acquisitions-a 50 percent rise from 2018
Accenture has been the company’s top acquirer in the past 30 months. In 2019, it outdid itself, making a total of 24 acquisitions-a 50 percent rise from 2018, showing data from the M&A industry survey by Hampleton Partners for IT and business services.
The push to acquire Accenture has been an attempt to develop digital capabilities. Over the last 30 months, it has made 53 acquisitions, including those of the Clarity Solution Group offering data analytics consulting services, and the French advisory company Silveo providing services and solutions for digital manufacturing and smart supply chains. Another main acquisition was from Pragsis Bidoop, a Spanish organization with deep Big Data, AI and advanced analytics expertise.
Accenture has spent about $1.2 billion on 33 buyouts in the 2019 fiscal year. Hampleton said transaction volume rose in the second half of 2019, moving up to 407 transactions in the first half of the year, from 380. Tech services and help, the IT services sector’s biggest division, accounted for 43 percent of transactions.
The second-largest acquirer was Dentsu Aegis Network. In the last 30 months, it has signed 25 transactions, some concentrating primarily on digital marketing. These included the acquisition of MuteSix, a direct-to-consumer marketing agency based in Los Angeles which focuses on advertisement services for Facebook and Google.
The joint third position with 16 acquisitions was Deloitte, whose purchases included multiple data-focused firms, and PE investor Presidio, who joined the top buyer list with a transaction of $75 million from 15 smart home design-build firms.
Miro Parizek, Hampleton Partners ‘ founding partner, said, “The migration of core business services to the internet and cloud, plus widespread adoption of analytics, digital marketing, machine learning, social trading and more, is generating a strong demand for businesses across the industry.
Macroeconomic trends are also contributing to M&A activity, as private equity firms can now afford to acquire market-leading tech companies with strong growth potential, leading to greater transaction sizes. “Apollo Global Management’s $5.4 billion acquisition of the Tech Data electronics distributor in November 2019 shows the outsize reach of private equity firms.
In 2019, PE buyers accounted for 15 percent of all transactions, compared to just under 5 percent in 2014. In 2019 private equity investors invested a total of $14.7 billion-an in an improvement from the $11.9 billion invested in 2018. About 60 percent of the transactions concerned a target organization in North America, while 29 percent had a client headquartered in Europe.
