Launch of Market Comps for the Valuation of Technology Assets

Technology assets are amongst the most important intangible assets of enterprises. By mid of June 2022, MARKABLES will launch a new set of comparable data, ratios and royalty rates to support the valuation of technology assets. This dataset comprises 3,000+ different cases of product technology, and another 2,800+ different cases of software. In a series of short articles, we give a first glimpse about what users can expect from?product technology?comps. Stay tuned.

To begin with, we present a list of the?ten most expensive technology portfolios?we have on file. They have been acquired between 2003 and 2019, and their values range from 10.9 to as much as 44 billion US$. Our frontrunner is the tech portfolio of?Allergan?(eyecare and aesthetics) acquired by Actavis in 2018. Looking at the other cases on our Top10, we see?pharmaceuticals,?chemicals, and one?IT hardware?business.

The 10 tech portfolios account on average for 49% of enterprise value, and they show a stunning excess earnings margin (or royalty rate) of 55% on revenues (!), over a remaining useful life of 12.8 years. What we see here is the?king’s class of hi-tech strategies, with expensive, long and risky R&D investments.