Technology Buyouts

Foreword The public market valuation of technology companies throughout the 1990s is probably one of the most interesting phenomena in recent financial history. No sector has generated more enthusiasm among investors, and no sector has created more millionaires, albeit mostly on paper. Once the bubble burst, the correction process was brutal. The price of technology companies dropped by over 70 percent on average, and a significant number of companies went out of business, while others were simply avoided by the investment community. I Tilman Pohlhausen asks a valid question: Did this downturn in valuation lead to some companies being unjustly undervalued, given their past and expected cash flows? If so, he continues, would such companies be suitable for a concept rarely heard of previously for technology companies: a buyout, possibly even financed to a high degree by debt? The idea is not new. In contrast to Europe, a number of well-financed private equity funds in the United States exclusively target the technology sector for buyouts. What is new, however, is that many more technology companies, because of their lower valuation, could become targets of buyout investors in Europe, as well. Ultimately, with his analysis of the buyout attractiveness of European technology companies, the author attempts to estimate the validity of this perception.