JPMorgan's Global Chairman On Tech M&A: 'Scale Does Matter And Competition Is Fierce'

Merger and acquisition activity is set to see a large boost in the coming months, at least according to JPMorgan's Global Chairman Jennifer Nason. Speaking to CNBC, Nason noted that the market hasn't seen much M&A activity among "big" technology companies due to a fear of integration risk and missing technology cycles. However, she stated that it is possible that companies will feel more of a "push" to undertake large-scale M&A deals. She continued that creating meaningful scale "does matter," especially at a time when competition is "fierce" with many companies "jumping into each others backyards." So how big of a deal could investors expect? According to Nason, companies valued in the tens of billions could be involved in M&A. She added that a dip in valuation could further prompt a buyer to act quickly and "pick those opportunistic moments in which to pounce." Nason further suggested that names like Apple Inc. AAPL, Alphabet Inc GOOG, Facebook Inc FB, among other mega-cap players will emerge as buyers given their superior financial flexibility. In fact, these names weren't considered to be names active in the M&A space in the past but now these companies "are on every buy list" along with Chinese investors who represent another "entrant in the M&A game." Nason also pointed out that roughly half of the companies that are in JPMorgan's IPO backlog are active in evaluating what an M&A transaction might look like instead of a public offering.