The latest Autotech M&A Market Report from Hampleton Partners, the international technology mergers and acquisitions advisor, reveals that the 12 transactions utilising special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) to prepare public offerings during the first six months of 2021 achieved $80.5 billion (€68.60 billion) in deal value.
Hampleton’s research also showed that a record median EV/S multiple of 23.9x was achieved during that time frame.
The majority of SPAC transactions targeted companies in the Mobility & Fleet Management segment, the largest of which was the April merger of Singapore-based Grab, the ride-hailing to finance company, with SPAC Altimeter Growth, for $39.6bn (€33.75bn). Its Nasdaq listing is now scheduled for later this year.
Miro Parizek, principal partner, Hampleton Partners, says, “As we predicted, dealmaking continued in the sector with a clear focus on mobility and electrification. Supporting that trend, we saw 2021 begin with an explosion of SPAC-led activity in related autotech sub-sectors. The transaction value of autotech SPACs approached $100 billion (€85.22 billion) in the first six months of the year. The valuation multiples were extraordinary.”
Autotech M&A market
Excluding SPACs, the autotech sector saw an increase in M&A transactions completed in the first half of 2021 with 44 deals inked against the 39 recorded in 1H2020.
Revenue and EBITDA multiples also recovered and are moving back to previous levels after dipping in 2020: the trailing 30-month median revenue multiple came in at 2.1x, while the corresponding EBITDA multiple climbed back up to 14.9x.
Electric vehicles (EVs) regain momentum
The production and adoption of electric vehicles regained momentum, with figures showing that the European EV market is growing faster than the United States, with sales of plug-in EVs in Europe rising 137% to 1.4 million vehicles in 2020, whilst U.S. sales rose 4% to 328,000.
China’s total electric vehicle sales soared in the first half of 2021, with 1.2 million cars being delivered, matching the total figure recorded in the whole of 2019. Amongst other factors, this is also spurred on by the Chinese government’s stated goal for electric vehicles to account for 20% of new sales by 2025.
After years of hovering at about 5% of total automobile sales, the segment now routinely accounts for 10% of total monthly deliveries.
In July 2021, Daimler announced it was to invest more than €40 billion into electric vehicle technology by 2030. The company said that it plans to build eight EV battery plants, and that from 2025 all newly-launched vehicle architectures will be electric-only.
Miro Parizek says, “Generally M&A activity, even excluding the SPACs, has remained healthy with an uptick in valuations across the board. Buyers have especially targeted mobility and electrification related sub-sectors.
“Deal levels in internet commerce and embedded software for the automotive sector remained stable whilst enterprise application-related M&A volume slowed down. As for the remainder of this year, we anticipate continued robust valuations in the sector.”
Hampleton’s Autotech M&A Report analyses transactions, trends and activity across the Enterprise Applications, Internet Commerce & Content, Embedded Software & Systems, and Mobility & Fleet Management segments of the sector.
Download the full Hampleton Partners’ Autotech M&A Market Report
Comment on this article below or via Twitter: @IoTNow_OR @jcIoTnow
