Colin Campbell | Strategic Buyers vs. PE Firms

M&A Masters

After culling through a decades-worth of data on IT services companies, Colin Campbell, Associate Director at Livingstone Partners, sees potential for a market downturn on the horizon.

He shares what trends he sees that point to this potential slowdown, as well as how Buyers and Sellers approach M&A deals to account for it.

Colin says that Strategic Buyers are being quite selective in companies they target, and tend to go after the company aggressively once they “fall in love,” wanting to move quickly and are willing to pay a premium.

This is in contrast to Financial Buyers (like private equity PE firms) who may have a wider appetite for acquisition targets, but factor into their analysis the possibility that values may level-off or decline due to an economic slowdown or other factors – they are mindful of the potential downside when pricing a target.

In our conversation, we take a deep dive into the above concepts, as well as…

• The type of revenue that is most attractive to Financial Buyers
• What drives real value in data processing companies;
• Who’s buying IT services companies today;
• The disconnect between Buyers and Sellers in the IT services space;
• And more