Despite mounting economic gloom, the telecoms sector is set for another flurry of M&A. Richard Irving separates the hunters from the hunted.
Which company is persistently the subject of more takeover speculation than any other on Wall Street? Step forward Akamai, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based content delivery specialist powering Apple’s iCloud initiative and the US’s most rumoured bid target. According to Bloomberg, the financial information provider, Akamai has been the subject of no fewer than 21 separate bid rumours in the financial press over the last five years, stoked by suggestions that anyone from AT&T to Verizon – and just about every carrier, IT specialist or media giant in between – wants the company’s cloudbased technology.
It is perhaps no surprise that a telecoms business should top Bloomberg’s inauspicious league table – the sector is on the cusp of an unprecedented boom in mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Indeed such is the speculative storm swirling around the market, that it is not entirely clear – with the notable exception of Akamai –...