Monday, June 20th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Peachtree Capital Advisors is pleased to welcome Erika Ji to our team. Along with Patrick, she serves one of our youthful Summer Analysts.
Erika is a rising sophomore at Stanford University, where she has completed coursework in Architectural Design, Computer Science, Philosophy, and Physics. Prior to joining Peachtree, Erika completed internships with Stanford’s Political Science Department, researching the development of international military conflicts, and the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, performing analysis of sunspot rotation and twisting coronal fans. Aside from academic endeavors, Erika has dedicated over 700 hours to serving her local community and fundraising for Action Against Hunger, the American Cancer Society, and Pediatric Trauma Prevention. She also enjoys planning the annual Stanford Viennese Ball, teaching piano to underprivileged children, and singing with the Side By Side vocal group.
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Peachtree Capital Advisors is pleased to welcome the newest member of our team, Patrick Snodgrass, who will be joining us for the next few months as a Summer Analyst.
Patrick joins us from Harvard University, where he is a rising junior majoring in economics. Patrick has excelled academically during his first two years at Harvard. He has been named a John Harvard Scholar for maintaining a position in the top 5% of his class and has received the Detur Prize for “exemplary academic achievement as a Freshman.” Outside of his academic pursuits, Patrick directs a non-profit mentorship program called Boston Refugee Youth Enrichment Teen and is involved in an extracurricular finance club at Harvard known as the Veritas Financial Group. Last summer, he also completed an internship at Investours, a microfinance organization active in Mexico and Tanzania.
Monday, April 25th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Peachtree is proud to partner with Herrick, Feinstein LLP in sponsoring Renewable Energy Investments: Opportunities and Pitfalls for Private Equity Investors, an evening panel discussion to be held on May 19, 2011. The panel discussion will focus on key considerations for private equity investors seeking opportunities in the renewable energy space. Our panelists, which include Jar Shah (founder of SunEdison), Richard Kaufman (former CEO of Good Energies), and Neil Wallack (President of ZBI Ventures), will discuss some of the distinctions among the various asset classes within the renewable energy space, the concept of creating climate wealth and identify obstacles to achieving returns, as well as the risks and other factors that impact renewable energy business models.
For more information, please visit the official event invitation.
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 at 11:16 am
Here is a link to an article written by SoftwareAdvice.com that discusses 14 potential acquisition targets for HP.
http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/enterprise/hp-mergers-acquisitions-who-is-next-1031401/
As we all know, technology and software M&A is “supposedly” on the rise. It might still be a year off, because middle market companies have inflated valuations due to speculation that they will be a takeover candidate as opposed to valuations based on growth and financial performance. Instead of growing through acquisition, management teams of middle-market companies are content to grow with the market. They do not have to worry how “ho-hum” growth will affect their stock price in this environment.
This dynamic will change once private equity companies come off the sidelines and start consolidating the market. Competition for smaller acquisition targets and scale will begin to drive M&A in the middle market. This phenomena is not very far off.
Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
We just released a new report today, our 2010 Software and Technology M&A Review. Here’s a snippet from the report that summarizes M&A activity in the tech sector in 2010:
Propelled by a stabilizing economic environment, a buildup in corporate cash, and increased activity from private equity buyers, U.S. software and technology M&A rebounded in 2010 from a two-year decline to climb 22%. In total, 426 transactions were announced for a reported $44.9 billion this year, up from 414 and $36.8 billion in 2009.
With a recalibrated strategic focus and a slight sense of urgency triggered by rising valuations, technology companies were motivated to pursue larger deals on their corporate wish lists and follow emerging trends and technologies such as mobility and connectivity. Among the largest deals of the year were Intel acquiring McAfee for $7.7 billion, SAP buying Sybase for $5.8 billion, and HP beating out Dell in a bidding war to acquire 3Par for $2.4 billion—more than double Dell’s original offer.
Meanwhile, the private equity community, which showed little movement throughout the recession, stirred from its hibernation to enjoy a comparatively active year in 2010. After private equity firms raised enormous funds in 2005 and 2006, the subprime mortgage crisis that hit in 2007 had paralyzed the industry as cheap debt disappeared and investments became nearly impossible to exit. Three years later, the stabilizing economic climate, alongside rising valuations and loosening credit markets, enabled private equity firms to once again deploy and explore exit opportunities.
To read the rest of the report, you may download it here.
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Today we released our annual greentech M&A report, which is available on our website. In an up-and-down year for U.S. greentech M&A, 371 mergers, acquisitions, and capital raises were posted in 2010 for a reported total of $14.7 billion — 55% higher than in 2009. Energy efficiency was a clear benefactor from a shift in investor interest from megawatts (renewable energy generation) to negawatts (saving energy), while smart distribution led the M&A front with a string of smart grid acquisitions made by large corporations jostling for position in this growing market. Meanwhile, valuations crept downward as uncertainty in U.S. energy and climate policy challenged investor confidence in the cleantech sector. To read the full report, follow this link: http://bit.ly/eR2yoN.
Monday, January 3rd, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Below is a link to an excellent post by Yoni Jacobs regarding the recent run up of stock prices in the tech . I agree with most of what Yoni says regarding the tech bubble, but as it relates to Groupon turning down a $6 billion offer, he does not mention that both Google and Facebook also turned down a multi-billion dollar bids from Yahoo and Microsoft as early stage companies. Had either of those two companies taken their respective offers, they would have clearly left a lot on the table.
Sign of a Renewed Technology Bubble
The bottom-line is that technology investors and acquirers have to have a well-thought-out plan when it comes to the Cloud. Buying a company just because they are a SAAS company on the Cloud is not a good enough reason to make an acquisition. CEOs need to adhere to the golden rule of M&A when it comes to evaluating targets in this new cloud environment, if it is good for the customer then it is a good acquisition. Providing a software or service over the Cloud is meaningless unless someone is paying for it.
Thursday, December 30th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
We at Peachtree are happy to announce that our client, New Mexico-based solar integrator Focused Energy, was acquired yesterday by German trading firm BayWa AG.
The acquisition marks the entrance of BayWa’s quickly-growing renewable energy business into the US, where the solar photovoltaic (PV) market is experiencing phenomenal growth. Here are a couple of excerpts from the official press release.
“This is an important acquisition for us, since it allows BayWa to make a successful entry into the high-growth American PV market. The acquisition represents a further important step towards the consistent implementation of our growth strategy in the renewable energies area,” commented BayWa AG CEO, Klaus Josef Lutz.
Focused Energy is a leading US wholesaler reporting strong growth and margins in the residential and small to mid sized commercial market segments. “We regard ourselves as very well positioned to benefit disproportionately from the expected strong growth in the US market thanks to our established brand combined with the critical volume that we have achieved, as well as our well established customer relationships,” noted founder and CEO Paul Benson. “We are convinced that Focused Energy will be able to develop significantly greater potential as part of the BayWa Group.”
You may access the full press release on BayWa’s site.
Thursday, December 30th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
On December 24, 2010, we officially renamed our firm Peachtree Capital Advisors to more accurately represent the broadening scope of our industry expertise. When the firm was originally founded, we had a singular focus of serving the media industry. Since then, however, we have expanded our expertise into the cleantech and technology sectors while strengthening our footprints in the media space.
As we look forward to 2011, exciting prospects loom for each of these sectors and we look forward to working with you to serve your needs and tackle the promising opportunities that exist.
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Below is the link to an article that I wrote for eContent Magazine. Unfortunately, they did not mention who I was or my firm on the front page of the article, which is why I wrote the article in the first place. It looks like I am one of their staff writers.
Regardless, it is a good read with a great deal of insight into why I truly believe that Adobe.com and Salesforce.com should merge.
Adobe & Salesforce.com: A Match Made in the Cloud
C’est la vie.