The M&A market is at an all-time high, with a number of factors such as low-interest rate, vaccines fueling pandemic recovery, cheap financing, a booming stock market, etc., contributing to its growth.

Every year industries undergo some major changes from M&A activities and mega-billion dollar deals that can alter the economic landscape of the corporations to smaller acquisitions that bigger players employ to gain a competitive edge.

Significant moves by the industry: Mergers 2021

Some of the biggest health and tech companies pursued strategic overhauls, M&A activities, with many thriving to become more powerful globally. Let’s look at some of the significant mergers and acquisitions activities that shaped 2021.

Oracle acquires Cerner: Evolution of healthcare tech and Artificial Intelligence

Just before the calendar wrapped up, Oracle closed one of the biggest deals of all time — acquiring Cerner for $23.8 billion. It is Oracle’s largest acquisition, almost three times the size of its PeopleSoft acquisition in 2005.

Leaders of both corporations touted on their combined ability that the companies thrive to offer medical practitioners contemporary and easier to use digital tools that enable access to information through a hands-free voice interface to secure cloud-based platforms.

Indeed, a smart move by Oracle as It’s on the way to acquiring a larger presence in the healthcare market.

Microsoft acquires Nuance: Access to advanced speech recognition

It is one of the second-biggest M&A activities for the year 2021. Microsoft acquired Nuance for $19.7 billion.

Based on artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and speech recognition, Nuance communication has always been a powerhouse in the health care sector.

Without a doubt, this acquisition will help Microsoft become a giant player in healthcare technology by bridging the gap between Microsoft’s cloud for health care and health care institutes.

Did you know that almost 77% of U.S health care professionals use Nuance? Yes, that’s right! This would make Microsoft the leading provider of conversational technologies.

Salesforce acquires Slack: Future of enterprise software

Cloud computing giant Salesforce has acquired Slack for a whopping $27.7 billion, one of the popular workplace communication platforms with over 10 million active users.

The world of work has changed, and the credit goes to remote working, and that’s where Salesforce came to the rescue.

Slack as the collaborative app seamlessly integrates with the Salesforce platform, enabling users to communicate and keep track of past and ongoing projects.

Joining forces will give both the companies the capacity to compete against other giants such as Facebook and Microsoft.

Cerner acquires Kantar Health: A boost towards life sciences research capabilities

Cerner closes the deal by acquiring Kantar Health for $ 375 million in cash. Kantar Health’s experienced team has a deep understanding of the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry hence, a rationale behind Cerner's acquisition of Kantar Health.

Also, combining Kantar's research capabilities and consultancy credentials with Cerner's real-world data repository and portfolio can help medical centers and research groups improve health and develop new pharmaceuticals.

EverCommerce acquires DrChrono: Expanding suites of solutions

EverCommerce, a SaaS (software-as-a-service) platform, acquired DrChrono — an all-in-one solution comprising electronic billing, health record, and cloud-based practice management. Both companies aim to help small and mid-sized businesses to thrive.

This acquisition will help DrChrono join EverCommerece’s tools that help over 70,000 customers streamline day-to-day healthcare operations, improve administrative workflows, and enhance engagement with patients.

Baxter acquires Hillrom: Expanding Medical Innovation Globally

Baxter acquires Hillrom, a global leader in medical technology, for $ 10.5 billion. The latter will bring an innovative pipeline and complementary portfolio, allowing Baxter to offer a broader array of services and products to health care units all around the globe.

Virtual data room: A reliable tool for M&A activities

Merging companies is one of the many ways to strengthen its market dominance. Business transactions involve a bulk of documents that contain confidential and sensitive information. Resorting to virtual data rooms helps in conducting successful M&A deals.  

The virtual data room is an online repository that enables companies to share, distribute, and store essential documents. Most M&A activities are carried out using virtual data rooms as they come in very handy when performing due diligence.

Final verdict

The M&A market in 2021 has seen the highest deal value in history. What’s more impressive, as we jump in 2022, giant corporations are steady to expand, digitize, and scale their businesses.

Some of the biggest names in the industry are open to partnership and investment so that they can share capabilities and resources to strengthen their hold in the market.