Private equity dominated the top 10 enterprise M&A deals in 2022

Deals totaled astir $154B

It was a funny twelvemonth successful endeavor tech M&A, 1 successful which the bulk of enactment came from backstage equity firms: As tech banal values plunged passim the year, these companies went bargain hunting. They saw companies with tons of upside being vastly undervalued successful the brutal marketplace conditions of 2022.

But curiously, the twelvemonth began with Microsoft announcing it was acquiring Activision Blizzard for a startling $69 cardinal successful January, followed successful April by Twitter being sold to Elon Musk for $44 billion. Neither of those deals made this list, nevertheless — they aren’t truly endeavor companies. But they did amusement the committedness and large wealth being tossed astir this year.

After you discount those transactions, the apical 2 deals inactive progressive companies scooping up desirable properties for large bucks, but overmuch of the apical 10 is dominated by those backstage equity concerns, with Thoma Bravo attached to 3 of the apical 10 and Vista Equity Partners successful two. According to Crunchbase, Thoma tallied up six multibillion-dollar deals successful 2022 and Vista three. That’s a batch of enactment for 1 year.

Consider that Google buying Mandiant for $5.4 billion and Intel nabbing Tower Semiconductor for the aforesaid terms didn’t adjacent marque the list. This twelvemonth required astatine slightest a $6 cardinal terms tag to adjacent marque the apical 10. That’s up from $5.4 cardinal past twelvemonth and $3.5 cardinal successful 2020. This year’s deals totaled $153.9 billion, compared with $121 cardinal successful 2021 and $165 cardinal successful 2020, a twelvemonth successful which a clump of spot companies changed hands successful a play of consolidation for the industry.

We saw a clump of insignificant deals — insignificant successful M&A money, that is — arsenic companies scooped up smaller startups. Those deals didn’t marque this database but included Celonis buying Process Analytics Factory for $100 cardinal and Snowflake grabbing Streamlit for $800 million. Many different deals were truthful tiny that the companies didn’t person to uncover the buying price, similar IBM buying Envizi oregon Zoom acquiring Solvvy.

A mates of ample deals died connected the vine this year, with Nvidia walking away from its $40 cardinal connection to bargain Arm aft it came nether aggravated regulatory scrutiny. In addition, Zendesk scrapped its attempt to bargain Momentive, the institution down SurveyMonkey, for $4.1 cardinal after investors rejected the deal. Eventually, Zendesk would get acquired and marque our list.

Several deals successful this database are facing aggravated regulatory scrutiny, including the apical two, truthful it remains to beryllium seen if each of these deals volition marque it to the decorativeness enactment oregon articulation Nvidia successful choosing to debar the outgo of warring a authorities entity, whether successful the U.S., the U.K. oregon the EU. That could beryllium the existent M&A bequest of 2022, but clip volition tell.

Without further ado, present are 2022’s apical 10 endeavor M&A deals:

10. OpenText acquires Micro Focus for $6B
Not a immense woody successful the strategy of things — a bequest bundle institution buys a bequest bundle institution — and truthfully, Micro Focus itself has acquired a clump of bequest titles implicit the years, including Borland and Novell. It besides partnered with HPE successful 2016 successful an $8 cardinal deal. As noted astir the woody erstwhile it was announced, this was little astir gathering retired the catalog with a compatible merchandise than it was simply to get bigger. Still, it was bully for No. 10 connected this year’s list.