Higher interest rates in 2023 decreased technology industry M&A activity throughout the first half of the year, especially in Q2. In the second quarter, the number of M&A deals in the IT services and telecom services industries declined 15 percent from the same period last year and 15 percent from Q1 2023.

“As interest rates have risen they’ve increased the cost of capital for acquirers, so that naturally slows down the M&A market,” John Holland, managing director of Corporate Finance Associates, told CRN. “While the number of transactions fell, what it tells you is that the average transaction size increased. So there were fewer deals but there were a couple of really big deals.”

Laguna Hills, Calif.-based Corporate Finance Associates is an investment banking firm with decades of experience in executing mergers and acquisitions in the IT and telecom services industries.

“There was so much stimulus from the federal government…and interest rates were so low and money was just cheap during the pandemic that the number of M&A transactions really peaked,” Holland said. “That was bound to slow down. It can’t go on forever.”

In June, Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM acquired Bellevue, Wash.-based Apptio, a provider of financial and operational optimization software, for $4.6 billion. The acquisition will accelerate the advancement of IBM’s IT automation capabilities.

As the average deal size increased in Q2 2023 in the IT services industry, the same was observed in the telecom services industry over the same period of time. In Q2, the deal size increased by 91 percent from the same period last year.

From IBM to Accenture to Bluewave Technologies, here are the biggest IT solutions-related M&A deals in Q2 or 2023. Terms of the deals were not disclosed.