From Fed Tech BisNow:
The four fiscal quarters from 4Q08 to 3Q09 were some of the worst in M&A history, but the market is now poised to benefit from the downturn, as the ten largest publicly traded tech companies have roughly $200 billion in cash on their balance sheets that investors are pressuring them to spend, says Updata’s Chase Sanders.
Speaking at this morning’s Tech Council of Maryland Financial Executives Forum, Chase, right, with BroadOak Capital Partners’ Lars Hanan, says the market “feels like its normalizing” and the big sector acquirers are fueling the push: for instance, SAP paying $6 billion for Sybase and IBM buying Sterling Commerce for $1.4B. “These companies have huge quantities of cash to spend,” Chase says. Note from Lars: The healthcare bill could enable 30 million more people to get prescriptions, upping the value on specific and generic pill makers.
