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Software M&A Likely to ‘Come Back Stronger’ in 2014: UBS 2014-01-07 14:34:39.533 GMT
By Beth Mellor Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Software sector M&A likely to pick up in 2014, with size and volume of deals likely to increase, UBS analysts led by Brent Thill say. * Pent-up demand for deals to help accelerate innovation in key areas (cloud/SaaS, security, Big Data, social and mobile); large multiples becoming less of a deal breaker * Likely targets include Jive, Qlik (potential interest from SAP, Oracle, IBM), Guidewire (possible interest from ORCL, SAP), Marin Software (Salesforce.com, IBM, ORCL) * In same report, UBS upgrades Splunk and Workday to buy from neutral; cuts Check Point Software to neutral from buy * NOTE: Dec. 3, FBR said expects “very active” software M&A in 2014 * NOTE: Earlier, Microsoft to acquire cloud-based customer engagement solution co. Parature; Oracle to buy SDN provider Corente; yday, Palo Alto acquired antihacking co. Morta Security
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--Editor: Beth Mellor
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