Brenon Daly oversees the financial analysis of 451 Research's Market Insight and KnowledgeBase products, having covered more than a quarter-trillion dollars' worth of deal flow for both national publications and research firms.
Brenon began his career in 1991 as one of the initial reporters at Prognosis, the first English-language newspaper in the former Eastern Bloc. While there, he covered the Czech Republic's transition to a market economy, as well as larger financial stories across the region. Brenon moved to Vienna in 1995 to run the local bureau for United Press International. In addition to reporting extensively on Austrian politics and economics, he also coordinated and edited EuroBusiness stories from correspondents in Slovakia and Hungary. After UPI, Brenon moved to 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.
Returning to the US in 1997, Brenon helped establish the editorial voice in the early days of financial news site CBS MarketWatch. During his time there, he helped launch OptionsWatch, covering options trading, and MarketPulse, a minute-by-minute report on stock activity licensed primarily to brokerages. Since 2000, Brenon has focused his reporting on M&A as a reporter for The Deal. During that time, he also sharpened his analytical skills, writing reports for TechDealmaker (since acquired by 451 Research) and the boutique research firm Intellectual Capital Associates.
If the economic shutdown in March due to the coronavirus pandemic was universally abrupt, the fledgling reopening in May is proving messily uneven. Certain businesses are open again, while others remain shuttered. But in the tech M&A market, there's not even the slightest recovery: Nobody is buying much of anything.
Even as some of the broader business restrictions from March start to get lifted, the tech M&A market remains in lockdown. Yet at least a few trends for post-coronavirus acquisitions have emerged, offering a glimpse of what the market may look like as it 'normalizes.' One tech giant is already embodying them: Microsoft.
Even a self-described 'once in a generation' tech company isn't immune to the worst global pandemic in several generations. Uber is having to uncharacteristically scale back its formerly bold ambitions. So why is it considering doing what would be the tech industry's largest acquisition since the coronavirus outbreak?
As economies haltingly start to open back up after the abrupt coronavirus-related shutdown, uncertainty still lingers heavily. That is forcing a shift in strategy at tech companies, which are now in the unusual position of deemphasizing growth. Moving fast and breaking things doesn't work in a world that's already broken.
For tech giants on Wall Street, it's almost as if the worst global pandemic in modern history never happened. Despite trillions of dollars in lost economic activity and tens of millions of lost jobs because of COVID-19, shares of most tech companies are currently trading where they were before the outbreak. It's a recovery that appears unfounded.
All tech acquirers are feeling the hit from the coronavirus pandemic. But financial buyers are proving to be the more at-risk population during the current crisis. Disruption in the financing market has limited their ability to shop, knocking the number of PE deals to a multiyear low and significantly cutting their share of the overall tech M&A market.
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