Transactions: Featured Interviews 70 Silver Economy Fund’s Acquisition of The Private Clinic 72 The Commercial Partnership Between UniCredit and Azimut 74 MCon Group AG’s Sale of the MCon Managed Services Division to CONVOTIS GmbH 76 Global Holdings’ Construction of Largest Full Timber Structure in the UK Major moves continue in the tech and energy sectors, with several industrymaking deals nearing or reaching completion. The final major hurdle standing in the way of Microsoft’s historic $69 billion merger with video game giant Activision Blizzard has been cleared, with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) granting the deal provisional approval.1 The CMA said in a document published by the UK government that there are now “reasonable grounds” to believe that the parties’ offer would be accepted by the regulator, leaving the way clear for the largest merger in the sector’s history to proceed. There were strong moves elsewhere in the tech industry as well. In the biggest technology merger to be announced this year, Cisco Systems declared its intent to buy cybersecurity firm Splunk in a deal worth around $28 billion.2 Cisco tapped new M&A firm Tidal Partners to handle the deal3, which is expected to reduce Cisco’s reliance on its own networking equipment business and improve its AI capabilities. Meanwhile, SoftBank made headlines with plans to seek a tie-up with OpenAI4 as part of a post-Arm IPO deal spree. The energy sector has also been active, as demonstrated by Magellan Midstream shareholders’ approval of the business’s $18.8 billion sale to larger rival ONEOK Inc5, creating one of the biggest energy pipeline companies in the US. Not all is straightforwardly positive in the sector, however, as Brookfield’s $9.8 billion takeover bid for Origin Energy has been complicated by pension fund AustralianSuper – Origin’s largest shareholder – raising its stake in the company to just under 14%.6 It remains to be seen whether the fund will use its greater sway over Origin to exert pressure on the deal. September also saw the largest IPO of the year to date with the aforementioned stock market debut of Arm, SoftBank’s chip maker. After launching to great fanfare with a $65 billion valuation, the firm then proceeded to fall below IPO price7 after a week. The slide, and an unusually high presence of short sellers, may indicate a lingering reticence towards new tech stocks on the part of investors. 1https://www.ft.com/content/ae7a6f3f-a21a-47ac-a5e7-c6847c2b2197 2https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/cisco-acquire-splunk-28billion-2023-09-21/ 3https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/cisco-taps-new-ma-firm-tidal-28billion-splunk-deal-2023-09-21/ 4https://opentools.ai/news/softbank-ventures-into-artificial-intelligencewith-openai-tie-up/ 5https://www.worldpipelines.com/business-news/22092023/magellanmidstream-approves-sale-to-oneok/ 6https://realassets.ipe.com/news/australiansuper-lifts-origin-stake-aheadof-brookfield-eig-takeover-vote/10069019.article 7https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-21/softbank-backedarm-falls-below-ipo-price-after-just-one-week?leadSource=uverify%20wall Mergers & Acquisitions 78 Asterion Industrial Partners Takes Over Steag 79 Insight Enterprises’ Acquisition of Amdaris 80 Polaris Acquires a Majority Stake in Micropower Group Funds & Investments 81 Primary Care Physio Ltd Has Secured an £8.25 Million Investment from BGF
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