The Biggest M&A Deals of 2020
To grow, we need to unite. This could possibly be the main message behind every M&A. Even though 2020 had been overshadowed by the pandemic, some of the largest corporations decided that it would be a good idea to acquire or merge with another company. Here are the biggest M&A deals that happened in 2020.
M&A market in 2020
The pandemic has impacted almost every industry. M&A deals might have been the best solution to many of the financial problems corporations faced during this strenuous time.
Credit Karma bought by Intuit: $6 billion
Intuit is behind programs like TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Mint. Acquiring a corporation which deals with financial problems seems like a sound decision. Combining the data from two sources — financial assets and tax statements — the company can provide even better solutions.
GrubHub bought by Just Eat: $7.3 billion
During the pandemic, we have witnessed the evolution and massive growth of the food delivery industry. Names like UberEats, Deliveroo, and Just Eat have risen in popularity.
It comes as no surprise that one of the most prominent corporations in this sector wanted to acquire another big player in that industry. Just Eat became one of the leading companies in the food delivery world.
Uber ATG bought by Aurora: $10 billion
A world filled with self-driving cars is closer than it seems. More and more countries are working on legislation that would enable fully autonomous cars. This is why such partnerships are future-proofed.
In the words of Uber, “Through a strategic partnership with Uber, Aurora paves a path for delivering the Aurora Driver broadly.” Through collaborations like this, the world will soon be able to reap benefits from their cooperative developments.
Livongo bought by Teladoc: $18.5 billion
Caring about our health is now more important than ever. The worldwide health crisis has made us painfully aware of that. This is why companies like Teladoc, a telemedicine and virtual personal health care company, want to make the world healthier.
Through acquiring Livongo Health Inc, Teladoc Health can provide its services to an even broader population. Both of these companies have the same mission, so merging into one was the next logical step in their development.
T-Mobile bought Sprint: $26.5 billion
This is one of the biggest deals of the past couple of years. Two of the largest telecommunications companies formed an industry giant in a joint venture — the merger was years in the making.
The decision was made in April 2018, and the deal came to fruition in 2020. T-Mobile decided to stop branding products with the Sprint logo and subsequently ceased any action with the Spring brand in August of 2020.
The biggest M&A deal of 2020
The largest deal of 2020 occurred between Nvidia and Arm. Nvidia spent $40 billion to secure the chip designer Arm. Their combined forces will result in the further development of AI technology.
Their cooperative effort will provide the world with a couple of benefits. The first being a wider insight into the world of AI and raising awareness of its importance (remember the self-driving car deal mentioned above?). This also means that they will have wider access to innovation as the chips can be designed in-house.
More importantly, Nvidia will reduce its carbon footprint, as the manufacturing of new technologies significantly impacts the environment — focusing on energy efficiency is one of their goals.
Conclusions
The world might be consumed with the current health crisis, but to provide essential services, many corporations needed to merge for a better future. This can be seen in the example of AI development and personal health care. We also want to eat some good food and communicate with our loved ones, and some of those mergers enabled us to do just that.