The broad market slump that has weighed on information technology M&A activity grew even more severe in November.
North American deal volumes in the sector slowed to 145 transactions, representing the quietest monthly M&A market for infotech in over two years. Year over year, November deal volumes were off by 47.3%.
The largest transaction announced in the month of November was Colt Technology Services Group Ltd.'s $1.80 billion offer for the European, Middle Eastern and African business of U.S.-headquartered Lumen Technologies Inc.
That was one of two November transactions that broke into 10 figures. The month's second-largest deal was PTC Inc.'s $1.46 billion bid for enterprise logistics company ServiceMax Inc.
* See S&P Global Market Intelligence's analysis of October infotech M&A trends.
* Use our Transactions Statistics page to run a custom screen of M&A by industry or geography.
The dry spell for M&A has been weighing on financial advisers. From November's largest transactions, Evercore Inc. and Morgan Stanley will advise Colt and Lumen, respectively. Meanwhile, advisers from Centerview Partners and Barclays PLC will consult PTC and ServiceMax, respectively.
Notably, November's top deals did not reflect private equity buyers, which are typically active in the infotech space. However, Thoma Bravo LP returned to the sector in December with its $6.17 billion bid for Coupa Software Inc.
The last $10 billion-plus infotech transaction announcement came in September with Adobe Inc.'s $19.41 billion bid for rival Figma Inc. Based on commentary provided during Adobe's Sept. 15 earnings call, the company is putting Figma's enterprise value between 50x and 100x its trailing-12-month revenue. The price is about 2x Figma's most recent pre-money valuation based on a January funding round.
