According to a report by PwC Israel, the total value of exits by Israeli technology companies in 2013 is $7.6 billion.
This is divided between mergers and acquisitions totaling $6.45 billion and IPOs (in Tel Aviv and New York) totaling $1.2 billion.
These numbers make 2013 the year with the second highest exit figures in the past decade, after 2006. But if two very large acquisitions of public companies that year Mercury by HP and M-Systems by SanDisk - are discounted, then 2013 leads by a long way.
On one criterion, 2013 has a definite lead: the average deal size this year is $170 million, compared with $111 million in 2012, and much lower figures for earlier years.
As far as sectors are concerned, although Google's acquisition of Waze is engraved in the memory as the deal that represents 2013, the leading sector this year has actually been life sciences, with deals totaling some $2.5 billion, an all-time high for this sector, followed by Internet, with $2.1 billion.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 29, 2013