1st Half 2018 Key Highlights

  • Eight of the Information Industry’s top ten highest value deals in 1st Half 2018 were completed by strategic acquirers. These eight acquisitions combined accounted for about one-third of the industry’s aggregate value year-to-date.
  • There were 425 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $55.58 billion, representing 20 percent of the total volume and 33 percent of the total value, respectively.

1st Half 2018 Key Trends

  • Total transaction volume in 1st Half 2018 declined by six percent over 2nd Half 2017, from 2,220 to 2,093.
  • As for the industry’s three horizontal markets, Software volume decreased by three percent; Online & Mobile deal volume moved downward by one percent; and Media & Marketing volume fell by ten percent.
  • Total transaction value in 1st Half 2018 lost three percent over 2nd Half 2017, from $173.96 billion to $168.42 billion.
  • The median revenue multiple shifted from 2.1x to 1.9x, while the median EBITDA multiple decreased from 11.7x to 9.6x.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 11,187 Information Industry transactions between 2016 and 1st Half 2018, of which 2,312 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate transaction value to be $758.29 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 8,873 undisclosed transactions to be $153.06 billion, totaling $911.35 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 2.0x revenue and 11.1x EBITDA.

Out of 11,187 transactions tracked by Berkery Noyes in this report, we found that 1,951 financially sponsored transactions accounted for 17 percent of the total transactions, yet they totaled $232.54  billion, representing 26 percent of aggregate transaction value.