Tough talk for tough times
Brenon Daly directs the financial analysis of the 451 Research Market Insight and M&A KnowledgeBase products within S&P Global Market Intelligence. He is responsible for all financial coverage within those product lines, as well as supporting investment- and acquisition-related activity by investment banking and private capital clients. Brennon arrived at S&P Global Market Intelligence through its 2019 acquisition of 451 Research. Before joining 451 Research in mid-2006, Brenon worked at research boutique for technology-focused hedge funds, as well as trading equity and options on his own book. Brenon began his career in 1991 as a founding reporter at the first English-language newspaper in the former Eastern Bloc. Brenon moved to Vienna in 1995 to run the local bureau for United Press International before taking on an analyst position with the Economist Group, where he researched and wrote reports for The Economist Intelligence Unit and the regional publication of The Economist. In addition to earning a degree from the University of Kansas, Brenon studied at the University of Ulster (Northern Ireland) and the Vienna University of Economics and Business (Austria).
The tech M&A market is struggling to find its way back. It isn't even clear which of the players is supposed to be leading the way. The "here today, gone tomorrow" inconsistency from the two groups of acquirers is the main reason why spending on deals still hasn't made it back to even pre-pandemic levels.
Wall Street tends to really love tech, until it really doesn't. No other sector has such wild swings as investors chase the latest change-the-world product, only to run the other way when the realities of the business intrude on the dreams of tech. But heading into this week's kickoff of an all-important Q1 earnings season, the historically volatile market finds itself no longer living at the extremes.
Announcing its third multibillion-dollar acquisition in less than a year, IBM's $7 billion purchase of HashiCorp establishes Big Blue as the biggest enterprise software consolidator in the market right now. It's a role the mainstay tech acquirer looked like it might have lost forever not so long ago.
One of the main reasons that Microsoft shares are trading at all-time highs is because of how aggressively the software giant has gone after generative AI. Placing a wide array of big bets early on promising technology and then rushing to market ahead of rivals has been key to its unusually active strategy.
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