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All M&As in 2020

Total of 48 including 2 big ones, acquisitions of Veaam and Intel's flash assets (but Optane)

Since decades, we analyze the merger and acquisition trends in the WW storage industry, which has allowed us the proper perspective from which to gauge the evolution over time.

NUMBER OF ACQUISITIONS SINCE 1977 IN WW STORAGE INDUSTRY

(Total 1,544 or 36/year)

M&a Total

(Source: StorageNewsletter.com)

We count 48 M&As in 2020 but a little more than in 2019 (42). In 2006, there was a record of 104, and 36 being the average per year since 1977.

Why this low figure? The consolidation in the mature storage industry is slowing. Furthermore, there are few start-ups with revolutionary technologies that could interested potential buyers. Some interesting start-ups could be acquired but they apparently are asking for price too high and prefer to remain private or waiting for an IPO.

And into these 48 M&As in 2020, the price of only 5 deals were revealed by the buyers, meaning that it was relatively low for the 43 other ones with an amount not impacting seriously their financial results.

ALL M&As IN 2020 WITH KNOWN PRICE

Mo. Buyer Bought Price in $million
1 Insight Partners Veeam Software 5,000
6 NetApp Spot 450
9 Pure Storage Portworx 370
10 Veeam Software Kasten 150
10 SK hynix Intel (assets) 9,000

(Source: StorageNewsletter.com)

Two deals surpasses $1 billion in 2020 (see above) compared to 3 in 2019. The highest acquisition in the history of the storage industry, at $63 billion, was the merger in 2015 of EMC and Dell – even if both of them were not in storage only. Biggest deal last year was at $6.9 billion, Nvidia to getting Mellanox.

MORE THAN $1 BILLION M&As IN HISTORY OF STORAGE INDUSTRY
(2 in 2020)

2015: EMC by Dell, $63,000 million
2018: Red Hat by IBM, $34,000
2001: Compaq by HP, $25,000 million
2018: CA Technologies by Broadcom, $18,900 million
2017: Toshiba NAND business by Bain Capital (and partners), $18,000 million
2015: SanDisk by Western Digital, $16,000 million
2005: Veritas by Symantec, $11,000 million
2011: Autonomy by HP, $10,300 million
1998: Digital Equipment by Compaq, $9,600 million
2020: Intel (assets) by SK hynix, $9,000 million
2015: Veritas (Symantec) by The Carlyle Group and GIC, $7,400 million
2009: Sun by Oracle, $7,400 million
2019: Mellanox by Nvidia, $6.900 million
2013: LSI by Avago Technologies, $6.600 million
2017: Cavium by Marvell, $6,000 million
2016: Brocade by Broadcom, $5,900 million
2020: Veeam Software by Insight Partners, $5,000 million
2011: Hitachi GST by WD, $4,800 million
2005: StorageTek by Sun, $4,100 million
2000: Sterling Software by CA, $4,000 million
2000: Seagate by Suez Acquisition, $4,000 million
2006: Agere by LSI, $4,000 million
2014: Riverbed by Thoma Bravo, $3,500 million
2008: Foundry Networks by Brocade, $2,600 million
2012: Elpida by Micron Technology, $2,500 million
2012: Quest Software by Dell, $2,400 million
2010: 3par by HP, $2,350 million
2015: PMC-Sierra by Microsemi, $2,300 million
2010: Isilon by EMC, $2,250 million
2009: Data Domain by EMC, $2,200 million
2006: RSA by EMC, $2,100 million
2002: IBM HDD by Hitachi, $2,050 million
2000: Cobalt Networks by Sun, $2,000 million
2000: Seagate by Suez Acquisition, $2,000 million
2004: Kroll by Marsh & McLennan Companies, $1,900 million
2006: Maxtor by Seagate, $1,900 million
2000: Ancor Communications by QLogic, $1,700 million
2003: Documentum by EMC, $1,700 million
2016: Dell EMC Enterprise Content Division by OpenText, $1,620 million
1998: Seagate Software by Veritas, $1,600 million
2017: Barracuda Networks by Thoma Bravo, $1,600 million
2006: FileNet by IBM, $1,600 million
2007: Opsware by HP, $1,600 million
2006: msystems by SanDisk, $1,500 million
2018: IM Flash Technologies (JV With Intel), $1,500 million
2019: Carbonite by Opentext, $1,420 million
2007: EqualLogic by Dell, $1,400 million
2019: Cray by HPE, $1,400 million
2011: Samsung HDD by Seagate, $1,375 million
2000: Quantum HDD by Maxtor, $1,300 million
2003: Legato by EMC, $1,300 million
2015: Cleversafe by IBM, $1,300 million
2010: Numonyx by Micron, $1,270 million
1996: Cheyenne by CA, $1,200 million
2010: Division 5 Technology by Max Stiegemeier (GCF), $1,200 million
2015: Virtustream by EMC, $1,200 million
1999: Data General by EMC, $1,100 million
2014: Fusion-io by SanDisk, $1,100 million
2017: Nimble Storage by HPE, $1,090 million
1995: Conner Peripherals by Seagate, $1,040 million
2016: QLogic by Cavium, $1,000 million
(Source: StorageNewsletter.com)

In conclusion, there was not at all an intense activity in 2020 in number of deals and only 2 represented big sums.

In 2020, for the 5 operations with price being known, total is $14.97 billion compared to $10.4 billion in 2019 and $21 billion in 2018, far from an historical record of $99.9 billion in 2016.

Consequently, the average price per M&A since 1977 now reaches $685 million for a cumulative total of more than $406 billion spent following 593 deals when price has been revealed (and 1,545 all included).

EMC was historically the most voracious in the storage industry with 82 acquisitions since 1993. It acquired a record of 23 companies in 2006 and 2007 only, just 1 in 2011, 3 in 2012 and 2013, 5 in 2014, 3 in 2015. On its side acquirer Dell got a total of 18 companies and also no one since 5 years.

With these 82 deals, EMC is largely in front of J2 Global with a total of 36 small acquisitions, Seagate (including Seagate Software) 31, Iron Mountain (in data storage only) 29, LSI with Avago and Broadcom 26, Adaptec with acquirers PMC Sierra and then Microsemi 26, Veritas added to Symantec 28, HP with HPE 25, WD 24, NetApp 24, IBM 22, Dell 18, and Xyratex (acquired by Seagate in 2013) 16 .

The consolidation in the industry will continue in 2020, but at a slow pace and since 2014, because some publicly-traded companies are in bad financial shape and even if many storage start-ups are trying to survive with only 2 possibilities: to be acquired or die.

Furthermore a trend is not going to stop: storage giants invent about nothing in new killing storage technologies and prefer to get them by acquiring start-ups. It’s less expansive than investing in their own R&D.

We will probably continue to see several M&As in 2021 in the most demanding storage sectors: cloud, software, security, hyperconverged system, and SSD where there are too many companies, but also in the channel for expansion.

WHO BOUGHT WHOM IN 2020

Month Buyer Bought Price* Comments
7 Acronis DeviceLock NA Endpoint data loss prevention
11 Acronis CyberLynx NA Israel-based cybersecurity consultancy firm
5 Ardian Swissbit Holding NA Private investment house acquiring  maker of SD, microSD cards, SSD HDDs, USB memory modules
9 Classify360 SEVEN10 NA Secure cloud-ready file system migration and information management software
11 CRU Data Security Group (CDSG) Digistor NA Data security solution
7 Datto Gluh NA Australian company with real-time platform that enables MSPs to simplify procurement of IT products and services
7 Device42 ArrayIQ NA Storage discovery
11 Druva sfApex NA Salesforce developer tools and data migration service provider
12 Ferrotec MeiVac NA MCT-8000 alumina deposition equipment used in production of thin film heads
3 Frontiir Termaxia NA Cloud storage firm in USA
9 Fungible Cloudistics (assets) NA Cloud software platform
12 Google Actifio NA Backup and DR
2 Hitachi Vantara Waterline Dat NA Intelligent data cataloging solutions for DataOps
3 Hitachi Vantara Containership NA Kubernetes container technology
2 HostPapa Data Deposit Box NA Cloud backup and recovery technology
1 Insight Partners Veean Software 5,000 Backup software
9 Lwks Software EditShare (assets) NA Lightworks non-linear editor and QScan quality assurance
3 NetApp Talon NA Software-defined storage solutions
4 NetApp CloudJumper NA Cloud software in VDI and remote desktop services
6 NetApp Spot 450 Software tools for visibility and automation that drive continuous optimization of workloads in single platform
3 Nvidia Swiftstack NA Object storage
2 OffsiteDataSync Data Harbor NA Data recoverability
7 OVHcloud OpenIO NA Open source object storage solution for massive storage infrastructures
8 OVHcloud Exten Technologies NA Storage software specializing in NVMe-oF
10 OWC Tollis Group (BRU) NA Cross-platform backup and archival solution
1 Paladian Data Apeiron Data Systems NA NVMe flash array
10 Proact IT Cetus Solutions NA UK cloud and workspace specialist
5 Profile Capital Management Panzura NA Global cloud file system
9 Pure Storage Portworx 370 Kubernetes data services platform for cloud native applications
2 Quantum Western Digital Activescale NA Managing video and unstructured data
12 Quantum Square Box Systems NA Agile media management and workflow automation software platform
10 Ricoh Europe MTI Technology NA Integrator
2 Rubrik Opas AI NA AI for root cause analysis in IT
12 Rubrik Igneous (assets) NA NAS/unstructured data management
6 Sirius Computer Solutions Advanced Systems Group NA IT storage solutions for clients in Rocky Mountains region
10 SK hynix Intel (assets) 9,000 NAND memory business (but Optane)
10 StorCentric Violin Systems NA Software-defined all-flash storage solutions
4 StorMagic KeyNexus NA Encryption key management
3 StorONE Storage Switzerland NA Storage analyst
7 Suse Rancher Labs NA Kubernetes management platform
12 Swissbit Hyperstone NA Flash memory controllers
1 Teledyne OakGate Technology NA Qoftware and hardware focused on test, validation and operating performance of solid state electronic storage media
10 Telestream EcoDigital formerly Front Porch Digital NA Media archiving specialist
10 Veeam Software Kasten 150 Backup, disaster recovery and mobility for Kubernetes
9 Veritas Technologies Globanet NA Compliance and intelligent communications solutions to enterprises, including Globanet Merge
7 VMware Datrium NA Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service for hybrid cloud environments
4 YEESTOR Microelectronics EpoStar NA Buyer in flash controllers in China
11 Zix CloudAlly NA Cloud-based backup and recovery for business

* In $ million
 (Source: StorageNewsletter.com)

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