At any given moment it's a safe bet that Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is either thinking about doing a deal or getting one done. So it wasn't surprising to hear that the San Jose, Calif., tech giant is spending $3 billion to
acquire Norwegian video communications company Tandberg ASA. Snapping up the video teleconference company is part of what Cisco calls a "
Collaboration Revolution" that includes virtualization and video strategies.
The Deal Pipeline (subscription required) has
more details on the transaction and shows that Cisco, which has about $35 billion in cash, completed more than 130 acquisitions since 1993 but had slowed the pace of activity since spring 2008.
Cisco's reputation as an active and proficient acquirer no doubt helped
it win our Most Admired Corporate Dealmakers award for the IT sector in 2008. It is also in the running this year. But with nine companies on our list (see below) and the tech sector continuing to be transformed by deals, it once again faces some serious competition.
You can look through the deals the companies have done and express your view on which company has done the best work at
http://www.thedeal.com/cdsurvey. -
Baz HiralalWho are the Most Admired Corporate Dealmakers?
| IT sector market caps |
Market cap |
($mil) |
% change |
1/1/06 |
$2,234,559 |
-19% |
6/30/09 |
$1,802,428 |
Total aggregate Market Cap numbers reflect all U.S. based public media companies trading on primary U.S. exchanges with market cap values on both 1/1/2006 AND 6/30/09 |
| |
Company |
No. buys |
Total value buys ($mill.) |
No. sells |
Total value of sells ($mill.) |
Total no. deals |
Total value deals ($mill.) |
Market cap (1/1/06) |
Market cap (6/30/09) |
Total value deals as a % of market cap 1/1/06 |
% change in market cap |
| Hewlett-Packard Co. |
8 |
$19,003 |
0 |
$0 |
8 |
$19,003 |
$81,242 |
$92,229 |
23.4% |
14% |
| Oracle Corp. |
6 |
10,877 |
0 |
0 |
6 |
10,877 |
62,904 |
107,255 |
17.3 |
71 |
| IBM Corp. |
7 |
8,502 |
1 |
381 |
8 |
8,883 |
129,836 |
137,834 |
6.8 |
6 |
| Microsoft Corp. |
6 |
8,110 |
3 |
45 |
9 |
8,155 |
278,358 |
211,546 |
2.9 |
-24 |
| Motorola Inc. |
8 |
4,916 |
2 |
1,346 |
10 |
6,262 |
56,267 |
15,199 |
11.1 |
-73 |
| Fiserv Inc. |
3 |
4,444 |
2 |
1,065 |
5 |
5,509 |
7,983 |
7,112 |
69.0 |
-11 |
| Cisco Systems Inc. |
14 |
5,328 |
0 |
0 |
14 |
5,328 |
105,160 |
107,571 |
5.1 |
2 |
| EMC Corp. |
10 |
3,179 |
0 |
0 |
10 |
3,179 |
32,561 |
26,380 |
9.8 |
-19 |
| eBay Inc. |
8 |
3,119 |
0 |
0 |
8 |
3,119 |
60,239 |
22,039 |
5.2 |
-63 |
| Symantec Corp. |
10 |
2,432 |
0 |
0 |
10 |
2,432 |
18,926 |
12,742 |
12.9 |
-33 |
|
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Juergen Lasowski
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