1st Half 2018 Key Highlights

  • The largest deal in 1st Half 2018 was Walmart’s announced acquisition of a majority stake in Flipkart Online Services, an e-commerce marketplace based in India, for $16 billion.
  • Five of the industry’s top ten highest value acquisitions year-to-date occurred in the E-Commerce segment.
  • There were 276 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $28.65 billion, representing 20 percent of the total volume and 27 percent of the total value, respectively.

1st Half 2018 Key Trends

  • Total transaction volume in 1st Half 2018 declined by one percent over 2nd Half 2017, from 1,394 to 1,377.
  • Total transaction value in 1st Half 2018 more than doubled over 2nd Half 2017, from $50.83 billion to $106.10 billion. Of note, there were four transactions in 1st Half 2018 above the $5 billion threshold, compared to none in all of 2017. There were also 25 deals with disclosed values that reached the $1 billion threshold in 1st Half 2018, as opposed to eight such transactions in 2nd Half 2017.
  • The median revenue multiple saw an uptick from 2.2x in 2nd Half 2017 to 2.4x in 1st Half 2018. The median EBITDA multiple moved downward from 12.1x in 2nd Half 2017 to 10.3x in 1st Half 2018.
  • The segment with the largest increase in volume in 1st Half 2018 over 2nd Half 2017 was E-Content with a 15 percent rise, from 193 to 221 transactions.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 7,195 Online & Mobile transactions between 2016 and 1st Half 2018, of which 1,505 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate transaction value to be $298.37 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 5,690 undisclosed transactions to be $90.61 billion, totaling $388.98 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 2.2x revenue and 11.4x EBITDA.