Studie: M&A Treiber für die digitale Transformation

Methodology The survey

Methodology The survey Noerr, in partnership with Mergermarket and The Technical University of Munich, surveyed 150 senior executives from Germany-based companies. All these companies had made at least one acquisition which included a digital element (for example, a digital business model or ownership of digital technologies) in the period 2013-2017. Target companies involved with a wide variety of digital technologies qualified for inclusion examples of which include: automation, cybersecurity, e-commerce, machine learning, mobile technologies, software, sensors and quantum computing. Job titles surveyed included Chief Information Officer, Chief Data Officer, Head of M&A, Head of Corporate Development or the equivalent. Respondent companies Prior to their transactions, 65% of respondent companies had 5,000 employees or fewer, while among those with more than 5,000 employees some 26% had 5,001-50,000 while 9% had more than 50,000 employees. Their activities comprised: mainly B2B - 58%; mainly B2C - 22%; both - 20%. Some 63% of the companies were unlisted while 37% were listed. Dataset The German acquirer companies which we surveyed were drawn from a dataset of M&A transactions with a digitalisation element. In all such deals, digitalisation formed part of the rationale for the deal. All deals in the dataset had a Germany-based target or bidder and all deals were announced during the period 2013-2017. This dataset and comparisons to overall M&A with a German target or bidder company forms the basis of the analysis in Chapter 3. 34

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