1st Half 2018 Media & Marketing Industry Trends

1st Half 2018 Key Highlights

• The largest strategic deal in 1st Half 2018 was Informa’s announced takeover bid of UBM for $6.17 billion, which will create the world’s most extensive B2B events group. As a result of the merger, Informa’s shareholders will own 65.5 percent of the enlarged company with UBM’s shareholders owning the rest.
• There were 122 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $20.18 billion, representing 15 percent of the total volume and 38 percent of the total value, respectively.

1st Half 2018 Key Trends

• Total transaction volume in 1st Half 2018 declined by ten percent over 2nd Half 2017, from 892 to 803. Private equity volume increased nine percent whereas strategic volume fell 13 percent.
• Total transaction value in 1st Half 2018 fell by 55 percent over 2nd Half 2017, from $117.14 billion to $53.11 billion. Of note, two of the industry’s top three largest deals in 2017 occurred during the 2nd Half of the year and accounted for almost one-half of overall 2017 value.
• Aggregate value in 1st Half 2018 improved nine percent on a year-over-year basis.
• The median revenue multiple saw an uptick from 1.2x in 2nd Half 2017 to 1.4x in 1st Half 2018. The median EBITDA multiple remained nearly constant during this timeframe at 10.0x.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 4,490 Media & Marketing transactions between 2016 and 1st Half 2018, of which 972 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate transaction value to be $441.12 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 3,518 undisclosed transactions to be $47.93 billion, totaling $489.05 billion worth of transactions tracked over the past two and a half years.

Disclosed median enterprise value multiples for all segments combined in this report during the last 30 months were 1.7x revenue and 10.2x EBITDA.