Tell me about a recent deal in the news and what you'd ask if you were the analyst.

I'll use Cisco's $28 billion acquisition of Splunk that closed in early 2024 — it's a clean teaching case for a strategic-tech deal at scale.

Quick facts. Cisco paid $157 per share in cash, a 31% premium to unaffected. Total enterprise value was roughly $28 billion. Implied multiple was about 7.4x trailing revenue and roughly 21x EBITDA on Splunk's standalone. Cisco financed it with a mix of cash on hand and new debt. Qatalyst and Morgan Stanley advised Splunk; Tidal Partners and Centerview advised Cisco.

Strategic logic. Splunk gave Cisco a leading position in observability and security analytics, two markets where Cisco's organic growth had stalled. The thesis was that Cisco's enterprise distribution would accelerate Splunk's growth, while Splunk's data platform would unlock Cisco's adjacent product cross-sell. The synergy guide was around $1 billion of run-rate cost synergies and material revenue synergies, though revenue synergies were not quantified publicly.

If I were the analyst, the questions I'd ask:

One — was the multiple defensible? 7x revenue for a sub-20% growth software business is rich. The bull case requires re-acceleration to 20%+ within 18-24 months, and the question I'd press is what specific Cisco distribution motion makes that re-acceleration credible — sales rep retraining cycles in security software are 12-18 months even on the best execution.

Two — what's the customer concentration overlap risk? Cisco and Splunk shared a meaningful Fortune 500 buyer base. In a tougher IT-spend environment, do those buyers consolidate their spend across the merged entity, or do they use the combination as leverage to renegotiate price?

Three — retention of Splunk's engineering talent. Splunk's IP is the platform; if half the senior engineers leave in 24 months, the synergy case collapses. What was the equity retention pool, and what's the vesting structure?

Four — antitrust. Limited overlap, so muted, but worth modeling.