Merger activity decreased last week with four new deals announced and two deals completed. There were 19 new deals announced in the month of July with a total value of over $61.5 billion.
The largest deal announced last week was the acquisition of Medallia (MDLA) by Thoma Bravo for $6.4 billion. This is Thoma Bravo’s second acquisition in the month of July after Stamps.com. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Medallia is an enterprise software firm that provides an enterprise Software-as-a-Service platform internationally. We added Medallia as a potential deal in the works on June 11, 2021 after Bloomberg reported that it was exploring options including a potential sale. The company entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Thoma Bravo on July 26, 2021 for $34.00 per share in cash representing a premium of approximately 20% to Medallia’s unaffected closing stock price on June 10, 2021.
Another highlight from last week was Aon (AON) and Willis Towers Watson (WLTW) terminating their business combination agreement and ending litigation with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). In connection with the termination of the business combination agreement, Aon will pay a massive $1 billion termination fee to Willis Towers Watson. This was the fifth failed deal this year, four of which failed on account of regulatory issues. We wrote briefly about the changing M&A regulatory landscape in our August 2021 special situations newsletter.
Aon CEO Greg Case said, “Despite regulatory momentum around the world, including the recent approval of our combination by the European Commission, we reached an impasse with the U.S. Department of Justice. The DOJ position overlooks that our complementary businesses operate across broad, competitive areas of the economy. We are confident that the combination would have accelerated our shared ability to innovate on behalf of clients, but the inability to secure an expedited resolution of the litigation brought us to this point.”
You can find all the active deals listed below in our Merger Arbitrage Tool (MAT) that automatically updates itself during market hours.