Venture Capital Journal Looks to Manatt Partner for Its October 2011 Issue

“M&A Pace Picks Up” & “Few Complete IPOs, But Many File”
Venture Capital Journal

October 1, 2011 – Venture Capital Journal looked to Manatt’s T. Hale Boggs, a partner in the firm’s Corporate & Finance Practice Group, for two articles in its October 2011 issue. In the articles, Boggs discusses the M&A and IPO activity in the tech community.

In “M&A Pace Picks Up,” Venture Capital Journal reports that there has been a significant increase in venture-backed mergers and acquisitions, particularly for providers of cloud computing and data center services. Reaching $52 billion in the second quarter, the total value of global tech M&A is nearly double that of the first quarter, and Boggs predicts the activity is unlikely to slow.

“There are still a lot of companies out there that are solid fundamentally, that are cash flow positive, that have good and loyal customers, that are well managed, and they’re still sitting in VC fund portfolios,” said Boggs. “I have to think that M&A activity is going to continue, in part because of the uncertainty of the IPO market and in part because there are some really good acquisition opportunities out there.”

The article “Few Complete IPOs, But Many File” reports that numerous tech companies filed for IPOs, but few actually made it to the public markets in August and September. Though a large number of companies have filed to go public over the next few months, Boggs says he doesn’t expect a robust IPO environment in the near future, given the current economic and political conditions.

“The macroeconomic climate has been so unpredictable that it’s creating a lot of anxiety among investment bankers about whether the time is right to take a company public,” he said.