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).
SailPoint has set sail for Wall Street, again. Even though its planned IPO is something of a return voyage, the formerly publicly traded identity security vendor nonetheless finds itself in uncharted waters. Both SailPoint's location and its destination look nothing like they did on its first trip public.
Tech M&A came up a bit short last year. But dealmakers are still holding out hope that the market can find its way back to big-dollar transactions done at platinum-level prices. In our annual survey, an overwhelming majority of respondents expect 2025 to show the rebound that they had originally forecast for 2024.
Inflation may have still been a talking point for the broader economy last year, but it was the opposite in the tech M&A market. Deflationary pressure pushed pricing on tech deals to their lowest level in a decade. For all types of opportunistic acquirers, there were bargains galore in 2024.
Despite flashes of recovery, tech M&A struggled through a lackluster year in 2024. Neither the easing of many macroeconomic headwinds nor the emergence of the frothy, all-consuming tech trend of generative AI was enough to draw dealmakers back to the market. A comeback will have to wait.
Tech vendors are finding that they can do just fine without M&A, at least as far as Wall Street is concerned. Shares of most of the market's big-name buyers have never been worth more, while the companies themselves have never relied less on deals. After years of expansion through acquisition, organic growth is now the priority.
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