Dive Brief:
- Research from KPMG and Fortune Knowledge Group involving 553 U.S. executives found M&A activity is expected to be higher in 2016 than last year.
- More than one-third of surveyed execs reported expecting to initiate four to six mergers or acquisitions this year, and 91% reported expecting to set at least one deal in motion compared to 81% last year.
- Although the forecast looks at M&A activity across industries, last year in the martech sector the activity level was down compared to 2014. Still, the value of the deals last year made was 40% higher than the previous year, according to research from investment bank JEGI.
Dive Insight:
EMarketer speculated that the increase in M&A activity this year can be traced to an emphasis on entering new lines of business and expanding customer bases. The article's author cited 37% of respondents from the KPMG and Fortune Knowledge Group research offering those tactics as their primary reason for engaging in mergers and acquisitions.
Additional reasons offered for M&A activity included expanding geographic reach and enhancing intellectual property or acquiring new technologies.
Given the growing importance of marketing technology and ad tech, and the rapidly upward trend of programmatic ad buying, the martech sector is likely to be active in M&A this year.