300 years of technology M&A: Brexit in context

Brexit has provoked a cacophony of disparate, predominantly negative reactions from the UK technology and M&A communities over the last 60 days.

Factors ranging from the possibility of detrimental labour, mobility and tariff barriers to the uncertainties of future regulatory passporting and the arcana of data protection regulations have spooked businesspeople and the M&A markets.

The desisions that would flow from this changed vision of the future , where to live, build a business, pursue a career, which languages to teach one's children, are big, life-changing calls.  To understand whether this depressing scenario is an outcome about which one should be seriously concerned I have looked to the long-run history of technology M&A.

The emergence of modern M&A

Deal activity as we recognise it today has two fundamental prerequisites: creation of capital value in businesses and embodiment of those businesses in a form that can be traded. In agrarian subsistence economies each year looks much like the last plus or minus the effect of seasonal variation, plague, war etc.

Click here to read the full article.

Contact the team