On Wednesday of last week we announced and closed the sale of our client Instantiations to Google.  Read more in the Portland Business Journal and on TechCrunch – but not much more, as terms are confidential.  This was my third experience with the Google M&A team over the last 5 years (having worked on the Phatbits and Picnik deals).  Fortunately, not much has changed.  Google still hires smart, pragmatic people for Corp Dev, they negotiate hard, and they keep their promises.  What has changed is timing; they are closing so many transactions every month that everything takes longer than it used to.  LOI to closing in 2005 was 30 to 45 days.  Currently it can run to 3 or 4 months.

I am always intrigued by the calls that come in after a deal is announced.  Which competitors to the acquirer care enough about a deal to call the banker and try to extract details on pricing and structure?