At least we got the small deal of the Year – Twitter buying TweetDeck
29 July, 2011 Category: News No Comments 
Original post by Hunter Ruthven via M & A Deals
With a strong showing at the end of 2010, the past year has seen a resurgence in M&A activity as dealmakers completed a series of exciting and innovative transactions.
Small Deal of the Year Winner: TweetDeck’s sale to Twitter
After four years of hard work weathering the storm of the recession, DFJ Esprit is now seeing some reward for its labours.
Following its foundation in 2006, the European fund has been busily acquiring in the technology, media, telecoms, medtech and cleantech sectors to build a strong portfolio to take to the exit market.
Simon Cook, chief executive officer of the venture capital fund, explains, ‘We have been able to demonstrate our ability to add value and get companies sold. We’ve generated significant capital returns to our investors, who have continued to back us.’
In a standout year for Cook, DFJ accounted for 54 per cent of total European venture capital M&A exits (excluding IPOs and biotech), with headline deals such as the sale of LoveFilm to entertainment retail giant Amazon seeing Cook scoop the M&A Dealmaker of the Year award at the annual M&A Awards.
Cook featured prominently in the development of LoveFilm, a movie subscription business, sitting on the company’s board and labelling the sale, which achieved an enterprise value of $367 million, his standout achievement of the year.
‘I was on the board of LoveFilm for many years and saw it grow from 10,000 to 1.5 million subscriptions,’ Cook explains.
Putting a successful 12 months behind him, Cook says that with a recently raised $150 million fund primed for action, DFJ Esprit can once again return to the acquisition trail with what he describes as a ‘number of exciting technology opportunities in the market’.
12 MONTHS OF ACHIEVEMENT
With the very best of the UK M&A world assembled at the Millennium Mayfair hotel in London’s Grosvenor Square, the awards afforded the opportunity to take stock of what was another difficult but prosperous year for many.
Before the takeover of accountancy software business Access, chief executive officer Chris Bayne had never been involved in an MBO or private equity transaction.
