Actionable Insights for your M&A

According to Pitchburg, since 2010 corporate ventures have invested more than $125B. Moreover, it is worth noting that since 2012 investment has been growing considerably, reaching $36.7B in 2015. Among the sectors that have received the most investment from these funds are technology startups (42%), B2B (21.2%) and healthcare (20.2%).

Spanish media group Prisa bought the education business of Colombian group Carvajal in Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico and Ecuador for about €16.8M.

The Emplea 2016 call for applications was opened on 4 April 2016, grants for the recruitment of technologists to carry out R&D&I activities and will be open until 4 May 2016.

Investment in biotechnology is booming. So far this year, in addition to the fact that several biotech companies such as Imbiomotion have received funding, Ysios, Spanish venture capital focused on the health sector, has raised capital for its fund and a new Caixa Impulse call has been opened.

Econocom, the French joint venture, a technological benchmark in Europe in design, financing and support for companies in their digital transformation, continues its international expansion plan and in December bought Caverin Solutions, a Spanish company that provides ICT services.

Carlos Blanco after the sale of Akamon and the launch of Nuclio Venture capitala Venture Builder, has now launched his new venture, Encomenda Venture, a fund manager.

Neotec is a cdti programme to support the creation and consolidation of new technology-based companies, through a non-refundable grant that covers 70% of the operating budget for the first two years. In March 2016, the 2015 beneficiaries were announced and it is expected to be opened soon.

Prosegur has gone shopping in 2016 and so far this year has made 3 acquisitions, to strengthen its cybersecurity division, a market it entered in 2014, to enter South Africa, a new market where it had no activity, and to strengthen the market for valuable goods.

Many say that print media is dead, yet in the last year we have seen acquisitions in the sector. This month we learned that the Lara family, owner of the Prisa group, bought a stake in the Cataluña newspaper and last year Heraldo de Aragón bought 20 minutos and is now considering buying 5 días. These media offer both online and print services, maybe it is a good tactic to buy cheap and boost the digital part.

After Linkedin's macro purchase of Lynda, an online training and video tutorials platform, for $1,500M, it seems that transactions in the education sector have been growing with new technologies as the main protagonist. In Spain, although we have not yet seen any large deals, we have seen some transactions in the education sector over the last year.

Portobello Capital is once again interested in the food sector and buys the Murcian company Ramón Sabater. In addition, Ebro Food, which is pursuing a policy of expansion through acquisitions, has bought the French company Celnat.

The French BPO solutions provider Tessi wants to continue growing in the Spanish market and has started 2016 with purchase of companies Spanish companies, first Diagonal Company and then BPO Solutions.