Don’t you just love these booming markets? Well, if you don’t, try on these IPO, M&A, and financing stats from 1st Quarter 2014:
Initial Public Offerings: 72 companies went public in the U.S. in the 1st quarter - the largest number of new issuers since 2000 -raising a total of 11.1 billion. And, as of Monday 54 of the 72 of them were trading above their IPO price.
Mergers & Acquisitions: Global mergers & acquisition activity totaled $710 billion (Thomson Reuters), up 54% from last year.
Private Equity. Private equity firms did 850 deals, representing investments of greater than $152 billion (Pitchbook), up 11%.
Venture Capital. 1,348 companies raised more than $15 billion from venture capitalists, up 36%.
They also raised $10.3 billion for 578 funds in the 1st Quarter, up 51% from last year.
After many years of ongoing economic and investment dreariness, isn’t this so refreshing?
And aren’t we heartened that the doomsayers have been proven so fundamentally wrong?
Wrong about the U.S. economy.
And wrong about what is so clearly the dominant leadership position of this country in all of the great technologies growth industries of the 21st Century - software, biotechnology, energy, digital media, and more.
And beyond the numbers, there are some great stories.
Of new industries being built, of fortunes being made. Here is one of my favorites:
Last week, Facebook acquired virtual reality headset maker Occulus VR for approximately $2.24 billion.
Among the investors were Peter Thiel and Sean Parker, of PayPal and Napster fame, who through their VC The Founder’s Fund last year invested $16 million into Occulus.
Upon Facebook’s purchase of the company and correspondingly of their shares, their position is now worth more than $740 million, or a return of close to 50X on their invested capital.
How did they do this?
What selection strategies did they utilize to identify companies with this kind of return potential?
WEBINAR INVITATION
Well, attend my webinar Thursday - What Peter Thiel and Sean Parker Know about Investing and What You Should Too - to find out.
On it, I will share:
- Why the majority of investors presented the opportunity to invest in Occulus declined to do so
- How Thiel and Parker and their fund partners diligenced the deal and decided to invest in Occulus instead of in the dozens of virtual reality technologies then and now in the marketplace
- How Big Data and Black Swan portfolio theory and modeling were critical to their valuation analysis on the deal
- How today’s booming IPO and deal market, discussed above, is affecting (positively and negatively) the technology deal marketplace
Register now via the below link:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/646160762
To Your Success,
P.S. Interested in the topic but can’t make the webinar time? Well, do register and will make sure that you get a recording of the presentation.