Arm wrestle on the table

Accenture’s continued acquisition/investment spree dominated the international ICT market last month.

At home, it was Huge’s bid for Adapt IT.

Key local news

• Skynamo acquired mSeller, a UK-based mobile field sales technology provider.
• Altron is looking to divest some of its non-core businesses such as Altron Document Solutions, Altron Arrow and Altron People Solutions.
• Ellies Electronics is liquidating its manufacturing segment within the group on viability grounds.
• The Huge Group has made an R800 million offer for the shares of Adapt IT, a specialised software and digitally led business solutions provider.
• The MTN Group will sell its 20% shareholding in Belgacom International Carrier Services SA (BICS) to Belgian state-controlled telecoms firm Proximus for R1.8 billion, and the Administrative Court of Damascus (Syria) has placed MTN Syria under a judicial guardianship.
• Net1 has sold its remaining interest in Bank Frick back to The Kuno Frick Family ($30 million).
• SA’s long-awaited national switch-off process of analogue television transmitters will get under way next month.
• The appointments of Teddy Daka as CEO of Zutari; Anton Herbst as CEO of Tarsus Technology Group; Warren Prinsloo as CEO of Jasco; and Richard Willis as acting group CEO of Etion.

• Africell has emerged as Angola's fourth mobile operator.
• Convergence Partners has entered into an agreement with Nasdaq-listed Inseego to acquire 100% of Ctrack’s operations in Africa and the Middle East.
• The Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority has awarded a fourth mobile phone operator licence to Beeline Telecom, a wholly-owned local company.
• The appointments of Pilkku Aasma as Citrix’s VP, partner sales EMEA; Edouard Gueden as Xerox’s EMEA president; Lincoln Mali as CEO of Net1 Southern Africa; and Kate Mollett as Commvault’s regional director for Africa.

• Accenture has made a number of acquisitions, including: Businet System, a company that develops and operates Salesforce Commerce Cloud-based e-commerce sites in Japan; UK-based Edenhouse to better support clients in their digital transformation needs; Infinity Works, a cloud and digital transformation consultancy; and Future State, a change management consulting firm. It has also announced it will acquire Imaginea, a cloud native product and platform engineering firm; and it has invested in Touchcast, a leading virtual experience company.
• Amazon.com bought Selz, an Australian e-commerce company.
• Apple purchased Finland-based Curious AI, a core AI start-up.
• Bentley Systems acquired E7, an Australian leader in field-based construction delivery software for heavy civil construction.
• BlueAlly Technology Solutions, an MSP and networking and security solution provider, bought Virtual Graffiti, a provider of networking and security solutions.
• Buildertrend purchased CoConstruct, a provider of project management software for the residential construction space.

The Huge Group has made an R800 million offer for the shares of Adapt IT.

• UK-based Calligo acquired Decisive Data, a US-based provider of services around data analytics and data science.
• Thoma Bravo’s ConnectWise bought Service Leadership, a data-driven TSP consulting firm.
• Consulting Solutions purchased TEK Connexion, a provider of technology services and workforce solutions.
• Canada-based Diabsolut acquired Foundry52, a consulting firm specialising in Salesforce Revenue Cloud and FinancialForce implementations.
• Help Systems bought Digital Defense, a cyber security firm that provides a SaaS platform to enterprise clients.
• HPE purchased CloudPhysics, the provider of an AI-based hybrid cloud assessment tool.
• IBM acquired Taos Mountain, a multicloud consulting company.
• Kaseya bought RocketCyber, the provider of a managed security operations platform.
• Keysight Technologies purchased Sanjole, a leader in solutions for protocol decoding and interoperability of 4G, 5G and other wireless technologies.
• NCR acquired Terafina, a solution provider for customer account opening and onboarding across digital, branch and call centre channels.
• Nuance Communications bought Saykara, a like-minded start-up focused on developing a mobile AI assistant to automate clinical documentation for physicians.
• Proximus purchased BICS from Swisscom (€110 million) and MTN.
• Rapid7 acquired Alcide, an early-stage Kubernetes security vendor.
• SAP bought AppGyver, a specialist in ‘no-code’ development platforms that make it possible for users to build Web applications without having to know how to code.
• Stratasys purchased UK-based RP Support, a provider of industrial stereolithography 3D printers and solutions.
• Zadara Storage acquired NeoKarm, a provider of an Amazon Web Services-compatible cloud system that, when combined with Zadara’s hardware and software, gives MSPs an on-demand private cloud fully managed by Zadara.
• Apax Partners has agreed to buy a majority stake in Herjavec Group, a managed security service provider.
• Akamai Technologies has agreed to acquire Canada-based Inverse, a provider of a robust data repository and world-class algorithms capable of identifying an expansive universe of IOT, mobile and other device types.
• America Movil is set to become the latest in a long line of telcos to spin off its mobile tower infrastructure; in this case, across its entire Latin American footprint.
• Arcserve, a developer of enterprise and midrange data protection technology, and StorageCraft, a developer of MSP-focused data protection technology, have signed a definitive agreement to merge.
• AT&T and TPG Capital have inked an agreement that will make AT&T’s struggling DirecTV video business a separate company, with the latter taking a 30% stake ($1.8 billion).
• Atos has pulled out of its bid for DXC.
• Australia’s parliament passed a law on Thursday to make Alphabet’s Google and Facebook pay media companies for content on their platforms in reforms that countries such as Britain and Canada are looking to replicate.
• Autodesk has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Innovyze, a global leader in water infrastructure software ($1 billion).
• Bharti Airtel will acquire a Warburg Pincus affiliate’s 20% equity stake in its DTH arm Bharti Telemedia ($429 million).
• Box has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SignRequest, a cloud-based electronic signature company.
• Cable One will buy the remaining stake in Hargray Communications that it does not already own ($2.2 billion).
• Deloitte is acquiring The Working Group, a digital consulting firm.
• Electronic Arts will buy Glu Mobile, another game developer ($2.4 billion).
• Fortnite creator Epic Games has taken its fight against Apple to European Union anti-trust regulators, thus ramping up its dispute with Apple over its App Store payment system and control over app downloads.
• HP intends to acquire HyperX, the gaming division of Kingston Technologies ($425 million).
• HubSpot has signed an agreement to buy The Hustle, a media company that produces a newsletter, podcast and premium research content.
• Investcorp has purchased a majority stake in KSM Consulting, a provider of tech consulting and analytics services.
• KKR has agreed to buy a majority stake in the Chilean fibre-optic network of Telefónica.
• Monolithic Power Systems has been added to the S&P500 index.
• MRI Software has entered into an agreement to purchase Manhattan, the real estate and workplace solutions division of Trimble.
• Orange has launched its European masts company, Totem.
• Palo Alto Networks has agreed to purchase early-stage start-up Bridgecrew to deliver cloud security across the full application life cycle by codifying infrastructure configuration during development.
• Proofpoint has agreed to purchase InteliSecure, a data loss protection MSP.
• Thoma Bravo-owned Quorum Software will merge with Aucerna, a globally trusted provider of integrated planning, execution and reserves software for the energy industry, and acquire TietoEVRY's entire Oil and Gas software business.
• Francisco Partners’ Renaissance has agreed to acquire Nearpod, a developer of interactive teaching software.
• Renesas Electronics has agreed to buy Dialog Semiconductor, a Frankfurt-listed design bureau ($5.9 billion).
• SailPoint has agreed to purchase Intello, a SaaS application management start-up.
• Sauce Labs, a cloud-based application testing solutions provider, has signed a pact to acquire AutonomIQ, a scriptless test automation solutions provider.
• SentinelOne will acquire Scalyr, a data analytics tech developer.
• Social Solutions has agreed to acquire Athena Software, a Canadian provider of case management software.
• Tenable has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Alsid SAS, a leader in Active Directory security.
• Tyler Technologies will buy payments company NIC ($2.3 billion).
• The US, UK and EU are to open probes into Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm.
• Verizon has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire incubed IT, the creator of a software platform providing autonomous navigation tools to administer, manage and optimise mixed fleets of robots in industrial settings.
• Xerox plans to create three new businesses: Software, Financing and Innovation.
• Abry Partners has invested in Kingland Systems, a provider of enterprise data software for the financial sector.
• Elliott Management has made a $100 million investment in AT&T.
• Insight Partners has invested in Plume, a technology firm that helps improve home WiFi and Internet security.
• Alkeon Capital and Coatue led a $750 million investment in UiPath, which creates robotic process automation software.
• Insight Partners has led investments in: NYMBUS, a provider of banking technology solutions; RapidSOS, creator of the world's first emergency response data platform; Copado, a leading DevOps platform powering the world’s largest digital transformations; and Earnix, an Israel-based company that offers customer analytics software.
• The appointments of Andy Jassy as CEO of Amazon; Rajeev Suri as CEO of Inmarsat; Sumedh Thakar as interim CEO of Qualys; and Richard Viel as CEO of Bouygues Telecom.
• A planned IPO in the US from Appgate, a secure access vendor.
• A planned IPO in Frankfurt from Vodafone’s Vantage Towers.
• An IPO filing for Tokyo from WingArc1st, a Japanese company that develops and sells business software.
• An IPO filing for China’s Nasdaq-like STAR market from Baidu-backed Chengdu Xgimi Technology, a specialist in multifunctional smart projectors and laser TVs.
• An IPO filing for the NYSE from South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang that is backed by the SoftBank Group.
• IPOs from Huuage (Warsaw), Kuaishou (Hong Kong), ON24 (NYSE), Telus International (NYSE) and Viant Technology (Nasdaq).

• Worldwide sales of smartphones to end-users will total 1.5 billion units in 2021, an 11.4% growth year-over-year, according to Gartner.
• Global sales of smartphones to end-users declined 5.4% in Q420 and 12.5% in full year 2020, according to Gartner.
• Worldwide revenue for the artificial intelligence market, including software, hardware and services, are forecast to grow 16.4% in 2021 to $327.5 billion, according to IDC.

• JSE All share index: Up 5.9% (all-time high recorded during this period)
• FTSE100: Up 1.2%
• DAX: Up 2.6% (all-time high recorded during this period)
• NYSE (Dow): Up 3.2% (all-time high recorded during this period)
• S&P 500: Up 2.6% (all-time high recorded during this period)
• Nasdaq: Up 0.9% (all-time high recorded during this period)
• Nikkei225: Up 4.7% (highest weekend close recorded during this period since 1989)
• Hang Seng: Up 2.5% (highest weekend close recorded during this period since June 2018)
• Shanghai: Up 0.7% (highest weekend close recorded during this period since 2015)

• The eventual buyers for Coherent and CoreLogic.

• Fortune magazine recently published its 2021 ‘World’s Most Admired Companies’ list. Retaining the top three positions were Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, with Nvidia, PayPal and Samsung Electronics also entering the top 50.