Top 8 Recent Mergers and Acquisitions 2022
8 recent mergers and acquisitions to remember from 2022
After a record-breaking 2021 year, M&A insiders were hoping for 2022 to be at least as successful. However, M&A deal activity has significantly slowed — the end of the year showed a 37% fall-off with a total deal value of $3.6 trillion.
Still, there were enough large and successful M&A deals in 2022. The list of the top 8 recent mergers and acquisitions of 2022 is given in the article below, so keep reading.
Despite geopolitical turmoil, rising interest rates, market volatility, and general economic uncertainty that greatly impacted the global deal volume, companies and private equity firms have conducted a lot of big M&A deals in 2022. The biggest mergers and acquisitions of the recent year are listed below. Spoiler: the majority of them were conducted in the gaming and tech sector.
- Activision Blizzard and Microsoft — $68.7 billion
- Broadcom and VMWare — $61 billion
- AMD and Xilinx — $50 billion
- Elon Musk and Twitter — $44 billion
- Oracle and Cerner — $28.3 billion
- Prologis and Duke Realty — $26 billion
- Microsoft and Nuance — $19.7 billion
- Vista Equity Partners and Citrix — $16.5 billion
Now, let’s get into the key details of each transaction.
1. Activision Blizzard and Microsoft — $68.7 billion
Date: Jan 18, 2022
Industry: Gaming
The acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft has become one of the most prominent transactions in the gaming industry.
Activision Blizzard is the creator of such iconic franchises as Candy Crush, Warcraft, Doom, Call of Duty, and Overwatch as well as global eSports activities through Major League Gaming. Now, Microsoft owns these hits in the video game industry.
Activision Blizzard was acquired for $95 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion. Insiders believe this deal discloses Microsoft’s ambition to completely transfer video gaming to the cloud.
2. Broadcom and VMWare — $61 billion
Date: May 26, 2022
Industry: Technology
In the first half of 2022, Broadcom, a semiconductor manufacturer, announced the acquisition of software firm VMWare. It was a cash and stock deal, and Broadcom also assumed VMWare’s debt of $8 million.
Surprisingly, this resulted in the Broadcom stock falling 20% right after the deal announcement. M&A experts believe this happened mainly because the two companies have entirely different cultures. Broadcom is also known as a company that buys other companies before huge staff layoffs. And in fact, many VMWare employees left the company after hints that remote work would no longer be approved by management.
3. AMD and Xilinx — $50 billion
Date: Feb 14, 2022
Industry: Microprocessors
AMD acquisition of Xilinx is considered one of the biggest M&A deals in the history of the chip industry.
It was an all-stock deal, expected to make the combined company a leader in the computing industry. However, a few months after the transaction’s completion, AMD’s stock price experienced a 55% drop. The final results of this acquisition are still to be revealed with time.
4. Elon Musk and Twitter — $44 billion
Date: Apr 25, 2022
Industry: Social media
Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is definitely one of the most discussed deals of 2022.
Elon Musk announced his desire to buy Twitter a few weeks after he first rejected Twitter’s acquisition offer. Some weeks later, Musk tweeted that he was pausing the deal because of Twitter’s “misleading” statements during negotiations regarding the anti-fakes policy.
Despite that, the deal was completed in October 2022. Remarkably, even after the deal’s closure, the hype around this transaction didn’t stop. Soon after the acquisition, Musk laid off a large percentage of employees (the total company’s workforce decreased from nearly 7,500 to 2,700 employees), including CEO Parag Agrawal. He also reactivated Donald Trump’s account, which was banned for controversial tweets.
Dealmakers are now curious about the future of Twitter operations and the results of such a deal.
5. Oracle and Cerner — $28.3 billion
Date: Jun 7, 2022
Industry: Healthcare
Oracle is the second-largest software company in the world, and it specializes in health information technology services. Oracle’s acquisition of Cerner was announced back in 2021 and completed in the summer of 2022.
The main purpose of the Cerner acquisition was Oracle’s intent to revolutionize health care by expanding Cerner’s digital capabilities and integrating telecommunications with data storage. This will literally allow doctors to spend more time with patients instead of dealing with administrative tasks.
6. Prologis and Duke Realty — $26 billion
Date: Oct 3, 2022
Industry: Real estate
Prologis and Duke Realty are both leading real estate and logistics companies in their specific industry.
This merger will hopefully make Prologis the largest real estate and logistics company worldwide. After the deal closure, the newly emerging combined company can boast an impressive portfolio. It includes more than $1.5 million of investments, logistics property with more than 1,228 acres of land owned, numerous industrial properties across the US, and 11 million square feet of development in progress.
Duke Realty chairman and CEO Jim Connor said that “together, they will be able to accelerate the potential of their business.”
7. Microsoft and Nuance — $19.7 billion
Date: Mar 4, 2022
Industry: Technology
Nuance is a software company that works with artificial intelligence and speech recognition services. It’s also a big player in the healthcare industry. Insiders believe that Microsoft’s acquisition of Nuance was dictated by the intent to move into the healthcare direction.
The deal was announced in 2021 and completed in the summer of 2022.
8. Vista Equity Partners and Citrix — $16.5 billion
Date: Jan 31, 2022
Industry: Technology
Vista Equity Partners is a well-known American investment bank that is greatly interested in technology and software investment. Therefore, their acquisition of Citrix, a cloud computing and virtualization technology company, was quite anticipated.
The deal was closed in January 2022, and the new combined company became one of the world’s largest software providers.
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