Admiring Apple

Several small acquisitions or deals in the pipeline were the highlights of a quiet international ICT market last week.

At home, it was also quiet.

• A positive trading update from Blue Label Telecoms.
• Atio, an ICT service provider, will apply for liquidation and is under business rescue.
• Five Elms Capital, a US-based software investor, is investing $30 million in Skynamo, a South African field sales app and management platform provider.
• A renewed JSE cautionary by Metrofile.

• Paga, a Nigerian digital payments start-up, acquired Apposit, a software development company based in Ethiopia.
• The appointment of Alex Okosi as YouTube’s MD for EMEA.

• CGI acquired Meti Logiciels et Services, a France-based company offering integrated business solutions and consulting services for the retail sector.
• Cority Software, a Thoma Bravo company, bought Enviance, a leader in environmental, chemical management, sustainability and ergonomics software.
• FireEye purchased Cloudvisory, which will add cloud workload security capabilities to FireEye Helix, offering customers one integrated security operations platform for cloud and container security.
• Gryphon Investors acquired Ncontracts, a provider of risk management software and services for the financial services sector.
• Arista Networks has scooped up software-defined networking specialist Big Switch Networks.
• Hitachi Vantara has agreed to buy Waterline Data, a start-up developer of intelligent data cataloguing technology.
• Italy's competition watchdog has launched proceedings against Facebook for non-compliance with a previous request it had made regarding improper commercial practices in the group's treatment of user data.
• Paycom Software has joined the S&P 500 index.
• ServiceNow has agreed to acquire Loom Systems, an Israel-based start-up that uses artificial intelligence to predict and prevent IT problems.
• Sohu.com takes Changyou.com private in a deal that values the company at about $579 million.
• Sweden's Stillfront has agreed to pay $300 million for Storm8, adding another developer of mobile games to its existing portfolio of a dozen studios.

Look out for government selling its shares in Telkom SA to fund SAA.

• TalkTalk has agreed to sell its fibre network to Goldman Sachs-backed CityFibre for £200 million.
• Tencent Holdings has launched a $148 million bid for computer games maker Funcom.
• Veritas Capital has agreed to buy Campus Management, a cloud-based student information system provider, and Edcentric, a SaaS platform for student and alumni engagement. Earlier this month, the firm acquired Cambium Assessment, which provides technology-driven student testing tools.
• Vista Equity Partners has agreed to sell Regulatory DataCorp, a provider of governance, risk and compliance software, to Moody's for $700 million.
• VMware plans to buy Nyansa, an artificial intelligence-based networking start-up backed by Intel Capital.
• TPG Sixth Street has led a $260 million investment in PartnersAvidXchange, a company that offers an automation platform to process invoices and payments.
• Summit Partners invested in eClinical Solutions, a provider of cloud-based enterprise software and data services for the life sciences industry.
• Insight Partners has led a $70 million investment in Sysdig, a provider of security and monitoring services for container-based applications.
• Viavi Solutions has reached a patent infringement settlement with LG Electronics and LG Innotek relating to the alleged unlawful use of its optical filters.
• Xilinx has filed claims against Analog Devices, asserting infringement of eight US patents.
• Very good quarterly figures from ASML and Netflix.
• Good quarterly numbers from Plexus, Soitec SA and Teledyne Technologies.
• Satisfactory quarterly results from Citrix Systems, Comcast, Ericsson (back in the black), IBM, Intel, Logitech International and PTC.
• Mediocre quarterly results from Amphenol, AVX, Chunghwa Telecom, Skyworks Solutions, Texas Instruments and Zensar Technologies.
• Mixed quarterly figures from Atlassian, Rogers Communications and STMicroelectronics, with revenue up but net income down.
• Very poor quarterly figures from Avnet.
• Quarterly losses from Tejas Networks.
• The appointments of Jeffrey Cote as CEO of Sensata Technologies; Dan Hendrix as CEO of Interface (already chairman); and Omar Ishrak as chairman of Intel.
• The retirement of Martha Sullivan, CEO of Sensata Technologies.
• The departures of Andy Bryant, chairman of Intel; and Jay Gould, CEO of Interface.
• Jamf, a provider of enterprise software that helps manage Apple products, has confidentially filed for an IPO that could value the business at roughly $3 billion.

Worldwide:

• Worldwide shipments of devices will total 2.16 billion units in 2020, an increase of 0.9% from 2019, according to Gartner. In 2019, global shipments of devices totalled 2.15 billion units.

• JSE All share index: Down 2.3%
• FTSE100: Down 1.2%
• DAX: Up 0.4% (highest weekend close)
• NYSE (Dow): Down 1.2%
• S&P 500: Down 1%
• Nasdaq: Down 0.8%
• Nikkei225: Down 0.9%
• Hang Seng: Down 3.8%
• Shanghai: Down 3.2%

South Africa:

• Government selling its shares in Telkom SA to fund SAA.

Fortune magazine has published its 2020 Most Admired Companies list. Included in the top 100 are:

• 1: Apple
• 2: Amazon
• 3: Microsoft
• 7: Alphabet
• 10: Salesforce.com
• 16: Netflix
• 34: Accenture
• 35: IBM
• 36: Visa
• 42: Mastercard
• 47: Adobe
• 54: Activision Blizzard
• 55: AMD
• 62: America Movil
• 64: American Tower
• 70: Applied Materials
• 74: Arrow Electronics
• 75: Asustek Computer
• 76: AT&T
• 77: Autodesk
• 78: ADP
• 87: Booz Allen Hamilton
• 94: CACI International
• 95: Canon
• 100: Cerner