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In connection with our restructuring services, our firm recently sold certain assets of a fabless semiconductor company. The sale included physical assets as well as intellectual property (“IP”). As can be expected from technology companies with significant expenditures on research and development, the majority of the value was embedded in the intellectual property: the design database and the patents.

The project reminded me of how much the landscape of acquirers of IP has changed in recent years as the market for buying, selling, and licensing IP becomes more mature. There are a host of different players with very distinct interests and operating models. (more…)

It’s no big news that there weren’t a lot of IPOs in 2009, and hardly any in 2008. In general, IPOs were few and far between in the years after the dot-com bust. Most pundits make the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002 responsible for this dearth of new offerings. (more…)

Depends. It can take a couple of weeks for a hot technology company, or many months, if the buyers aren’t lining up around the block, which is a rare occurrence these days. (more…)

In my last post, I discussed size considerations of individual venture capital firms.

If VC firms ought to be smaller, what does that say about the VC industry as a whole? (more…)

Bankruptcy-related mergers and acquisitions have hit their highest level globally since August 2004. (more…)

In a recent whitepaper Strategic Options for Distressed Technology Companies I discuss how turnaround management for venture-backed technology companies is different from that for companies in more traditional industries. (more…)