This article, co-authored by Simon Pearson, Anna Faelten and Ryan Gong from EY’s TMT Corporate Finance team, looks at how tech entrepreneurs can take their exit global.
The world is your oyster
Cross-border transactions present a huge opportunity to business owners. The benefits of an international sale process are twofold: it exponentially expands the buyer pool, meaning greater competition. And, it can ultimately provide an established platform and customer base to leverage in other geographies.
Over the past few years transactions have become increasingly international, with investors and corporates searching the globe for the most strategic assets. In 2017 cross-border M&A accounted for 41.9% of the value of global M&A activity, the highest proportion since 2014 according to Mergermarket.
The international opportunity applies to both large corporates and SMEs, particularly in the technology sector where cross-border M&A and fundraising are highly active. And despite the uncertainties around Brexit, the UK remains one of the most attractive European investment destinations for international investors. In 2017, foreign acquisitions in the UK dropped 10.1% in value to £98.8bn, but increased in number to 679 compared to 651 deals in 2016 – the highest deal count on Mergermarket record....