Multibillion-dollar deals abound

A multitude of multibillion-dollar deals dominated the international ICT market last week, among them Verizon/Yahoo, Analog Devices/Linear Technology and Oracle/NetSuite.

At home, it was another very quiet week from an ICT perspective.

* A full-year loss from Ellies, with revenue also down.
* A positive trading update from Amecor.
* Tarsus Technology Group made an additional investment (49%) in Tarsus Cloud On Demand, as part of its strategy to be a leading player in the cloud computing and software as a service markets. The latter now becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of the former.
* Wipro has launched a three-year corporate social investment project in SA, in partnership with the country's Industrial Development Corporation, to set up 29 computer laboratories that will benefit 28 000 students from rural areas.
* The death of Dumisani Mafu, chairman of TCS.

* Satisfactory quarterly figures from Bharti Airtel's African operations.
* The appointment of retired general Theophilus Danjuma as chairman of Ntel (Nigeria); and Tunde Ayeni as vice-chairman of Ntel (was chairman).

Wipro has launched a three-year corporate social investment project in SA.

* A10 Networks acquired Appcito, a provider of a versatile SaaS-based, multi-cloud ADC solution utilising microservice and container architectures.
* Accenture bought Tecnil'ogica, a Spanish company specialising in the use of emerging and open source technologies to build innovative omni-channel experiences for a wide range of mobile, Web, touch-screens, wearables and IOT-enabled devices.
* Analog Devices purchased Linear Technology, a fellow chipmaker, for $14.3 billion.
* Ardentec, a semiconductor wafer testing service provider, acquired up to 75% of Taiwan-based Giga Solution, a company mainly in radio frequency IC testing. The deal was worth $68 million.
* Cognizant Technology Solutions bought Idea Couture, a privately held firm that offers a broad range of digital innovation, strategy, design and technology services.
* Chinese mobile phone maker Le Holdings, also known as LeEco, purchased US consumer electronics company Vizio for $2 billion.
* MasterCard acquired VocaLink, a payments technology specialist, for £700 million.
* Murata bought Sony's battery business. Murata is the world's biggest supplier of energy-storing ceramic capacitors used in Apple and Samsung smartphones.
* OMERS Private Equity, the private equity arm of the OMERS pension plan, and funds managed by Harvest Partners, purchased Epiq Systems, a global provider of integrated technology and services for the legal profession.
* Oracle acquired NetSuite for $9.3 billion.
* Teradata bought Big Data Partnership, an EMEA-based services provider of big data solutions and training.
* Riverbed Technology purchased Aternity, a provider of end-user experience and application performance monitoring solutions.
* STMicroelectronics acquired AMS' assets related to the NFC and RFID reader business, including intellectual property, technologies, products and business, which is highly complementary to its secure microcontroller solutions serving mobile devices, wearables, banking, identification, industrial, automotive and IOT markets.
* Verizon Communications bought Yahoo's Internet businesses for $4.83 billion, in a deal that excludes the latter's cash, its 35.5% stake in Yahoo Japan, its 15% stake in Alibaba, its convertible notes, certain minority investments and its non-core patents.
* The UK's Ofcom has ordered BT Openreach, the broadband infrastructure division, to become a "distinct company, with its own board" within BT Group.
* LogMeIn and a unit of Citrix Systems that makes software products such as GoToMeeting, are merging to create a $1.8 billion company focused on technology applications for the workplace. Citrix shareholders will end up owning 50.1% of the combined company, while LogMeIn shareholders will own 49.9%.
* America Movil will cut its stake in Telekom Austria by 7.8%, to just over 50%.
* Excellent quarterly results from Facebook.
* Very good quarterly figures from Amazon, Arris International, CommScope, Microsemi, MobilEye, Stamps.com (back in the black) TTM Technologies (back in the black) and Yandex.
* Good quarterly numbers from Alphabet, American Tower, Cabot Microelectronics, Coherent, CoreLogic, Equifax, FICO, KLA-Tencor, Monolithic Power Systems, Nuvoton, RealTek and Tetra Tech.
* Good half-year numbers from Line Corporation.
* Satisfactory quarterly results from ARM Holdings, AudioCodes (back in the black), Brooks Automation, CGI Group, Check Point Software Technologies, Citrix Systems, Cohu (back in the black), Corning, Datalink, Digital International, Entegris, Forrester Research, Garmin, IPG Photonics, KYECS, L-3 Communications, Lam Research, Logitech International, NCR (back in the black), Netgear, NTT DoCoMo, PC Connection, Powertech Technology, Rudolph Technologies, Samsung Electronics, Sanmina, Sensata Technologies, Silicon Labs, Softbank, Telesat Holdings, TetraTech, Texas Instruments, Tyler Technologies, VeriSign and Xilinx.
* Satisfactory half-year figures from Orange, Sopra Steria Group and Winbond Electronics.
* Mediocre quarterly results from Apple, Canon, Chunghwa Telecom, Cirrus Logic, Dialog Semiconductor, Etihad Etisalat (back in the black), Juniper Networks, Kyocera, LG Display, Linear Technology, MicroStrategy, Nanya Technology, Proximus, Qlogic, Saudi Telecom, SK Hynix, Sony, STMicroelectronics, Telefonica, UMC, Vasco Data Security and Verizon Communications.
* Mixed quarterly figures from ADP, with revenue up but profit down; Akamai Technologies, with revenue up but profit down; Amdocs, with revenue up but profit down; America Movil, with revenue up but profit down; Anixter International, with revenue up but profit down; AVX, with revenue up but profit down; Baidu, with revenue up but profit down; Bharti Airtel, with revenue up but profit down; BT Group, with revenue up but profit down; Cadence Design Systems, with revenue up but profit down; Comcast, with revenue up but profit down; EFI, with revenue up but profit down; FIS, with revenue up but profit down; Global Payments, with revenue up but profit down; Infinera, with revenue up but profit down; Ingram Micro, with revenue down but back in the black; Intelsat, with revenue down but profit up; Intersil, with revenue up but profit down; Ixys, with revenue down but profit up; Level 3 Communications, with revenue down but back in the black; MDC Partners, with revenue up but profit down; Nice Systems, with revenue up but profit down; OpenText, with revenue down but profit up; Roper Industries, with revenue up but profit down; SBA Communications, with revenue down but profit up; SS&C Technologies, with revenue up but profit down; SPIL, with revenue up but profit down; T-Mobile US, with revenue up but profit down; Telecom Italia, with revenue down but profit up; Telefonica Brasil, with revenue up but profit down; Total Systems Services, with revenue up but profit down; Tower International, with revenue up but profit down; Turkcell, with revenue up but profit down; Ultimate Software, with revenue up but profit down; Unisys, with revenue down but back in the black; and Xerox, with revenue down but profit up.
* Mixed half-year figures from Huawei, with revenue well up but profit down.
* Quarterly losses from A10 Networks, Applied Micro Circuits, Atlantic Telecom-Networks, ATN, AU Optronics, Cavium, CommVault Systems, Cypress Semiconductor, Diebold, Fortinet, GoPro, Groupon, Hutchison Technology, Lexmark, Limelight Networks, Macronix International, Marvell Technology Group, MobileIron, NEC, NetScout Systems, NetSuite, Nintendo, NXP Semiconductor, Qlik Technologies, Quantum, RadiSys, Radware, Rovi, Sequans Communications, ServiceNow, Sharp, Shutterfly, Sonus Networks, Sprint, Synaptics, Teradyne, TPK Holding, Twitter, Vocera Communications, Weatherford International and Western Digital.
* A half-year loss from Technicolor.
* The appointments of Jan Frykhammar as acting CEO of Ericsson; Mark Marron as CEO of ePlus; and Philip Norton as executive chairman of ePlus (was CEO).
* The retirement of Kate McKenzie, COO of Telstra.
* The departure of Hans Vestberg, CEO of Ericsson.
* An excellent IPO on Nasdaq by Talend SA, a provider of open source integration software products.

Worldwide:
* Vendors shipped a total of 343.3 million smartphones worldwide in 2Q16, according to IDC. This was relatively flat, up 0.3% from 2Q15 when vendors shipped 342.4 million units.

* JSE All share index: Down 0.4%
* FTSE100: Down 0.1%
* DAX: Up 1.9%
* NYSE (Dow): Down 0.7%
* S&P 500: Flat (marginally down)
* Nasdaq: Up 1.2% (highest weekend close this year)
* Nikkei225: Down 0.3%
* Hang Seng: Down 0.3%
* Shanghai: Down 1.1%

International:
* The 'winner' of the bid for Naspers' Allegro, Eastern Europe's number one auction Web site. The contenders include Alibaba eBay and private equity firm CVC Capital.
* The outcome of Avnet's £691 million bid for Britain's Premier Farnell. Switzerland's Daetwyler Holding had offered to buy Premier Farnell for about £615 million in cash, including debt, on 14 June.
* Buyout firms acquiring some software assets that Hewlett Packard Enterprise has been considering divesting, worth between $6 billion and $8 billion.

Africa:
* Additional investments by Vodacom in Africa.

South Africa:
* More news regarding Cell C.

The world's 500 largest companies generated $27.6 trillion in revenue and $1.5 trillion in profit in 2015. Together, this year's Fortune Global 500 companies employ 67 million people worldwide and are represented by 33 countries.

Fortune magazine has just released its 2016 'Global 500'. In the top 100, from a technology perspective, are:

* 9: Apple (up from 15)
* 13: Samsung Electronics (no change)
* 23: AT&T (up from 33)
* 25: Hon Hai Precision Industry (up from 31)
* 30: Verizon Communications (up from 41)
* 45: China Mobile (up from 55)
* 48: HP (up from 53 and before split)
* 60: NTT (up from 65)
* 63: Microsoft (up from 95)
* 79: Hitachi (up from 89)
* 82: IBM (no change)
* 90: Deutsche Telekom (up from 102)
* 92: Softbank (up from 110)
* 94: Alphabet (up from 124 as Google)
* 96: Comcast (up from 135)

Further analysis will follow in next week's column.