Evan Klein, a managing director at Berkery Noyes who focuses on entertainment, media and marketing services, said SaaS companies in particular will continue to catch the eye of private equity shops. "The whole recurring revenue nature is both beneficial to the investors and the customers," Mr. Klein said. "There's some sustainability where you can look at prior years and build on that."
Although a down quarter overall, Berkery Noyes CIO James Berkery attributed cloud and as-a-service interest and adoption as making up for reductions in traditional business data software and services.
The number of M&A transactions fell 7 percent to 336 acquisitions from 362 in the prior quarter, according to new data from Berkery Noyes Investment Bankers. Deal value dropped 53 percent to $7.4 billion from $15.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012.
The value of deals were down nearly 70% from the $25.6 billion in the the fourth quarter 2012, per investment banker Berkery Noyes. Marketing deals which continues to be the biggest category of the media and marketing sector, increased 8% in volume from the fourth quarter to around 120 deals.
Jonathan Krieger, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes, was selected to speak at the upcoming iiBIG Healthcare Conference. He will serve as a member of the "Investing in the hCLOUD" panel. Panelists are set to discuss new cloud-based healthcare technologies and middle-market deal opportunities in the space.
Consolidation among software vendors in the governance, risk, and compliance sector seems to happen in waves that arrive every few years, and the latest wave seems to be upon us right now. So says a report from Berkery Noyes, an investment banking firm.
Evan Klein, Managing Director at Berkery, Noyes, & Co., discussed some of the factors currently spurring M&A activity in the Media and Marketing Industry.
Berkery Noyes contributed data to a slideshow in PaymentsSource, which highlights current merger and acquisition trends in the payments industry.
"I think in terms of the quality of the deals, most people would say it was a pretty good year," said Managing Director Mary Jo Zandy, referring to the large amount of multimillion-dollar transactions in the educational sector in 2012. Last year had fewer blockbuster sales, but the steady continuation of acquisitions is a sign of a healthy market, Ms. Zandy said.
"Financial sponsors have had considerable capital on the sidelines," said Peter Yoon, a managing director at the investment bank. "Specialty vintage private equity funds are approaching an inflection point and I think currently the macroeconomic environment is showing signs of improvement."
"I think there will be some more opportunities to deploy capital this year," Mr. Shea said. "The for-profit higher-ed space will come back [while] a lot of the technology areas will start to sort out so we can see what areas are getting traction."
Information-Management.com asked for a view of the year ahead in vendor consolidation and buyout from Berkery’s CIO Jim Berkery and Managing Director Mary Jo Zandy.
A lot of the M&A activity is being fueled in part by hospitals acquiring physician practices, Managing Director Tom O'Connor told FierceHealthFinance. "The physicians have resisted (modernization), but now they have to be more efficient because it is getting too expensive to provide care in the old-fashioned way," O'Connor said.
Over the past year, mergers and acquisitions have increased considerably in the healthcare IT sector, with smaller deals yielding big returns on investment, according to report from New York-based investment bank Berkery Noyes released Jan. 11.
“We are seeing [healthcare] technology sent to private equity groups, who are not healthcare centric per se, but who are pulling toward healthcare because healthcare is in desperate need of technology innovation and fresh ideas, and fresh capital,” Thomas O'Connor, managing director at Berkery Noyes, told Healthcare IT News.
Continuing a trend since 2010, health IT continues to outpace other health, medical, a pharmaceutical products and services by a significant margin, according to trend report published by Berkery Noyes.
“The ongoing trend toward nonprint-based delivery has led to changing business models in some instances,” said Kathleen Thomas, managing director at Berkery Noyes, in a statement.
New York-based investment banker, Berkery Noyes, says total dollar volume climbed 17% to $76 billion last year. But the price for those deals -- in terms of revenue multiples and the cash flow multiple -- went lower.
For the year, according to new data from Berkery Noyes Investment Bankers, the number of M&A transactions in the software sector rose just 1%, to 1,529 deals.There were only 10 deals in the sector with a value of more than $1 billion, and just four with a valuation of more than $2 billion. There were no deals in the $5 billion or above category.
To find a buyer, Great Escape hired New York City-based Berkery Noyes Investment Bankers, which specializes in mergers and acquisitions in the entertainment industry. "There was a lot of interest from potential buyers in the United States and overseas," said Evan Klein, a managing director of Berkery Noyes.
"Spending on training and perks to retain existing employees has become more important on the corporate level," Yoon explains, adding that in the preschool through 12th grade, the sector is shifting from print to digital tools, improving teacher efficacy and interaction with students.
Bryan Bellmare, vice president of Berkery, Noyes & Co., calls 2013's outlook for media and information M&A in 2013 "cautiously optimistic." He believes opportunities will be determined by business services. "Companies with diversified revenue streams, strong growth and healthy profit margins are receiving significant interest," said Bellmare.
Managing Director John Guzzo participated in a roundtable discussion moderated by Mortgage Technology editorial director Mark Fogarty and managing editor Austin Kilgore.
NetLearning provides electronic training and competency management software for hospitals and other health-care companies. It has nearly one million active users, said Berkery Noyes, health care-focused investment banking firm that advised Independence, KY. based Cengage on the sale.
In a guest blog post for HousingWire, John Guzzo gives his take on some of the key highlights from the Source Media Mortgage Technology Conference.
"We see additional acquisitions by foreign media companies in the U.S. We've talked to a number of them," said Evan Klein, managing director of boutique investment bank Berkery Noyes, who repped Great Escape in the Regal deal, describing interest by "leading exhibitors in leading countries" in Europe, South America and Asia.
Advanstar Global, parent company of the biennial MAGIC Marketplace fashion shows, has acquired ENK International, owner of 14 high-end trade show fashion brands, including ENKUSA, ENKVEGAS, Fashion Coterie, Intermezzo and Sole Commerce.
The transaction announced November 16 will make ENK a separate division of Advanstar Global. ENK will have access to the new owners’ new digital “Shop the Floor” platform, which begins next year and will give users online access to sellers under the ENK and MAGIC brands.
Advanstar Global LLC , an events and information services company, said it agreed to acquire fashion trade show organizer ENK International LLC.
The publisher of Internet Retailer magazine, Vertical Web Media, has sold its e-commerce events unit to GLM, an events and association management firm run by b2b publishing veteran Charles McCurdy.
George Little Management LLC, a trade show production company backed by Providence Equity Partners, said it acquired the events group of Virtual Web Media for an undisclosed amount.
Berkery Noyes was selected as a finalist in two categories: M&A Deal of the Year and Healthcare/Life Sciences Deal of the Year.
GLM has acquired the conference business of Vertical Web Media (VWM) in a move that will establish GLM in the e-commerce sector, a growing area that holds particular appeal to GLM’s trade show customers.
George Little Management continues to expand its events portfolio with the acquisition of the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition, an e-commerce event, and related assets from Vertical Web Media for undisclosed terms.
“Yes, the number of transactions fell slightly, but valuation levels for privately-held middle market companies continue to increase and 2012 is on pace for a record year in terms of both the number of deals and valuation,” said Berkery Noyes Managing Director Jon Krieger.
Berkery Noyes was selected as the winner in the Healthcare IT Deal of the Year category. Overall, 46 transactions were chosen for awards from a nominee pool of more than 600 mergers and acquisitions.
Berkery Noyes Managing Director Mary Jo Zandy, in a byline article for Sand Hill, outlines the factors impacting M&A activity in the e-Discovery space."With overall legal firm technology spending still recovering from the economic downturn, 2012 is shaping up as a record year, continuing the strong rebound performance among e-discovery vendors in 2011," said Zandy.
"As the modality of instruction shifts more to a blended or online solution, the subscription-based software-as-a-service model is becoming more prevalent in the space, which is attractive to financial sponsors," said Peter Yoon, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes.
In a white paper from the firm, managing director John Guzzo wrote that rising home equity, lower excess vacant homes, and more flexible FHA refinance qualifications are all leading the originations sector to “the beginning of an upward cycle in terms of both volume and dollars.”
So far this year, there have been some 34 deals involving supply chain management or fleet management software companies, compared to 25 in all of 2011, according to Berkery Noyes.
“The opportunity to integrate data and workflow is a key strategic driver in the provider environment, and supports higher quality care, patient safety and lower costs,” said Jeffrey Smith, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes.
Investment bank Berkery Noyes reports a year-to-date 19 percent increase in healthcare and pharma IT M&A activity compared to 2011.
“Legislative incentives continue to increase the velocity of deal flow in the healthcare IT M&A market,” said Jonathan Krieger, managing director at Berkery Noyes.
Peter Yoon, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes, outlines the steps that business owners in the corporate and professional training sector can take to better position their company for a potential sale.
Berkery Noyes' representation of Healthx in its majority recapitalization by Frontier Capital was announced as an award finalist by the Global M&A Network in three categories: Private Equity Deal of the Year, USA M&A Deal of the Year, and Healthcare IT Deal of the Year.
That's why major deals in the education space are likely to focus on services, rather than the typical focus on technology, said Mary Jo Zandy, the managing director of Berkery Noyes, an investment-banking firm based that represented JBHM in the deal.
Educational technology offerings have been increasingly attractive candidates for acquirers since 2010, and indications are that will continue through the second half of 2012.
“We have a very positive outlook going forward,” said Tom O'Connor, managing director at Berkery Noyes. “I think you'll see more deals, but smaller deals. You have some b-to-b publishers in the $20 million range who may want to sell their business. They've done very well, but it may be time to sell; the market has moved.”
A bulk of the innovation is happening at smaller privately held entrepreneur owned companies that have a unique software solution or work flow tools, Tom O’Connor, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes, said.
Managing Director Peter Ognibene, in a byline article for Bank Systems & Technology, discusses how an integrated payments business provides banks with the best opportunity to compete.
One surprise the report notes is that PE deals in the health and pharmaceuticals space were the greatest by volume of any sector for 2012’s first half.
There were 38 deals for mobile ad-tech companies in 2011—more than triple 2009's number, according to investment bank Berkery Noyes. The firm counted 21 acquisitions in the first half of 2012.
K-12 technology leads all sectors of education in number of mergers and acquisitions so far this year, with private equity firms continuing to figure prominently in the new education landscape, according to a new report.
“Life science organizations are placing a lot of importance on cloud and SaaS models to improve planning and enrollment services related to their clinical projects,” Berkery Noyes managing director Jeff Smith says.
“The complexity of healthcare and the explosion of information and new treatments makes it impossible to do medicine the old way via human memory so software and solutions step in to assist healthcare professionals in the practice of medicine,” said Tom O'Connor.
The number of Health IT companies that have changed hands or partnered up is on the rise, according to a new report from investment banking firm Berkery Noyes.
Merger and acquisition activity in the health-care information technology sector has increased by 28% to 196 deals in the first half of 2012 compared with the second half of 2011, according to a report by midmarket investment bank Berkery Noyes.
“The healthcare M&A markets have been very active recently and the velocity of deals will increase in the foreseeable future, particularly for those companies that provide technology enabled services to payers and providers," said Jonathan Krieger, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes.
According to a report by investment bank Berkery Noyes & Co., total transaction volume in the online and mobile space is up for the first half of the year with 970 deals through June 30, up from the year-earlier period, which notched 881 transactions.
"Taylor's corporate growth strategy is centered around customer communications in compliance-driven markets and that really aligns well with Venture Encoding's offering," said John Guzzo in an interview with Mortgage Technology.
Software mergers and acquisitions are up over the first half of 2012 compared with that same time period last year, pulled along by multiple buys of SaaS and customer analytics vendors, according to investment banking advisory Berkery Noyes.
Wood's Redwood Investments does the buying, Hanley invests and joins board. The deal was brokered by Berkery Noyes, which represented Redwood.
Customer analytics was an especially popular category for acquisitions in the first half of 2012. Another popular category, especially for cloud-based software acquisitions, was human capital management (HCM), with transactions up 39 percent from the first half of 2011.
"Emerging software technologies are increasingly being delivered to the end-user in a software-as-a-service model, and the revenue model for SaaS providers is recurring and predictable," said Jonathan Krieger, a managing director of investment bank Berkery Noyes & Co.
Total transaction volume in the software sector for the first half of 2012 beat both halves of last year, according to a new report by investment bank Berkery Noyes & Co.
Within the software space, consumer software M&A deals was the fastest-growing segment from the year-earlier period, having grown by 29%, Berkery Noyes said.
Berkery Noyes & Co. sourced the deal and represented Redwood Acquisitions as investment banker in the transaction.
Berkery Noyes, through the representation of Healthx in its majority recapitalization by Frontier Capital, has been selected as a finalist of the ACG NY Champions Awards in two categories: Healthcare/Life Sciences Deal of the Year and Information Technology Deal of the Year.
"The variety of risk profiling and stress testing that financial institutions will be subjected to requires more analytical capabilities," says Peter Ognibene, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes.
"What makes Instagram interesting is that the company itself wrote its own database to handle the massive influx of data it began to receive a few years ago," according to Keith Lubell, CTO at Berkery Noyes.
In traditional healthcare spaces like CME, O'Connor told MM&M, "Regional players have a closer touch on the market and can capitalize."
"There are several properties on the market right now, and I think you'll see a pickup in deals over the balance of the year—not a huge spike, but a steady increase," said Tom O'Connor, managing director at Berkery Noyes.
“Both sectors are 10 to 20 years behind the technology curve and are in major need of unique solutions due to cost pressure in the macro environment,” O’Connor says. “On the plus side, there is a huge amount of innovation by entrepreneurs in both these markets.”
Fortunately, there are many private equity shops catering to niche businesses in the middle market, says John Shea, managing partner at Berkery Noyes, an investment banking firm. “There’s volume in the middle market and that makes it attractive to private equity. If you look at the marketplace today, there simply aren’t that many megadeals.”
The M&A Advisor today announced the winners and finalists of the 3rd Annual 40 Under 40 M&A Advisor Recognition Awards. Managing Director John Guzzo was selected as a winner in the Eastern region.
In a byline article featured in Mortgage Banking Magazine, Managing Director John Guzzo states that "Mortgage technology vendors and outsourcers offering solutions that provide better quality control, enhance fraud mitigation, facilitate borrower communication and improve regulatory compliance are in demand by investors and acquirers."
Healthx, Inc.’s majority recapitalization by private equity firm Frontier Capital is the winner of the Global M&A Network's January 2012 M&A Deal of the Month Honors. The nominee winner, middle market investment bank Berkery Noyes, was Healthx’s sell-side advisor in the transaction.
Though private equity in the lower middle market has made a comeback, "it's still running for us about half of what it was in 2006 and 2007," asserts John Shea, managing partner at Berkery, Noyes & Co. LLC. "Today we're seeing about 25% to 30% of the buyers being private equity groups," Shea adds, in comparison to about 50% of Berkery Noyes' buyers in '06 and '07. Shea adds that education and healthcare IT markets are most active with PE buyers.
"A regulatory and legislative driver for the market is that Medicare, which is the country's largest payer, is reducing its reimbursement rates to healthcare providers and professionals and insurance companies," says healthcare technology banker Jonathan Krieger, a managing director at Berkery, Noyes & Co. LLC in New York.
Berkery, Noyes & Co. LLC managing partner John Shea is seeing strategic buyers acquire companies in a more focused manner amidst less competition. To illustrate, he discusses Cengage Learning Inc.'s strategic deal for the National Geographic Society's digital and print school publishing unit.
Jon Krieger, managing director at investment bank Berkery Noyes, managed healthcare IT firm Healthx’s majority recapitalization, which the company undertook in preparation for the swift market growth it anticipates. He spoke recently with Healthcare Finance News Editor René Letourneau about the transaction and its implications for the mergers and acquisitions market.
According to Jon Krieger, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes, “Private equity firms oversee $3T in global assets and due to the global economic challenges, 30% of that is sitting on the sidelines waiting to be invested
Companies specializing in cloud computing infrastructure technologies were attractive acquisition targets in 2011, according to a report from Berkery Noyes. “We saw twice the number of deals and three times the volume in terms of money spent, going from $4 billion in 2010 to $15 billion in 2011,” James Berkery, CIO of Berkery Noyes said.
While private equity firms accounted for some of the largest transactions struck in the media and marketing space, they were still largely outpaced by corporate acquirers. “Strategic buyers have a tremendous amount of cash and they're using that to facilitate growth,” said Berkery Managing Director Evan Klein.
It’s a seller’s market for young and small companies that have cornered any technology related to security, mobile wallets or Near Field Communication technology, says Peter Ognibene, managing director at Berkery Noyes.
Many of 2011’s highest-profile transactions in K-12 involved content companies and technology companies. "The level of activity is higher than it ever has been before,” said Mary Jo Zandy, the managing director of Berkery Noyes, which both tracks and advises companies in merger and acquisition deals.
“We’re seeing a lot of interest from both strategic and private equity buyers looking to acquire private HIT companies to penetrate the healthcare market,” said Berkery Noyes managing director Jon Krieger.
Berkery Noyes Managing Director Evan Klein, in an article published in Chief Marketer, examines the factors that marketing service companies should consider before going to market.
Investors also see a growing market in digital education companies. In 2011, deals in the ed-tech sphere totaled $10 billion, which was flat compared with the prior year, but up from $5.4 billion in 2009, according to figures just released by investment banking firm Berkery Noyes.
Evan Klein, managing director of Berkery, Noyes, explained how digital spending has constricted b-to-b media activity and discussed some areas where b-to-b media companies might be looking to buy in the future.
“SaaS providers are constantly updating their systems to reflect knowledge learned from one customer and making it available for all customers,” said Berkery Noyes managing director Jon Krieger.
WebMD’s facing more competition for the ads it is getting, sites like Everyday Health and Patients Like Me. And some of those competitors offer something extra to advertisers, because users register and give them personal information, says managing director Tom O’Connor.
Healthx's selling points included its large customer base and the technology platform it built over 15 years, according to managing director Jon Krieger, who said that with expenditures in the health-care sector rising, health providers and insurers are always looking to reduce costs.
Valuations for the deals done for the large companies in growth markets in education are at record levels, Mary Jo Zandy, managing director at the investment bank Berkery Noyes.
Below is a list of the top 10 deals in terms of payout for 2011, which had bested the previous year’s transaction values by the third fiscal quarter, according to financial advisory Berkery Noyes.
Paris-based Publicis Groupe, the parent of Digitas, Starcom MediaVest Group and Zenith Optimedia Group, was the “most active acquirer by volume” between 2009 and 2011, according to a year-end media and marketing industry mergers and acquisitions report released late Wednesday by investment bank Berkery Noyes.
And as there's no reason to expect an improvement in conditions anytime soon, WebMD may be looking to make some big changes to its business model – changes that could rattle investors, says Tom O'Connor, managing director of media banker Berkery Noyes.
To handle the search and sale, the executives tapped independent investment banking firm Berkery Noyes, with Kathleen Thomas as lead adviser.
Mid-market private equity firm SFW Capital Partners has completed a majority investment in Buyers Laboratory, a provider of analytical testing and competitive intelligence services to the digital imaging and document management industry.
According to Jon Krieger, managing director in healthcare investment banking for Berkery Noyes, corporate borrowers have learned to borrow when they can after extended periods of illiquidity. "The debt markets had essentially been closed for a long time," Krieger said, "and with the economy improving, the ability to borrow has improved as well."
Tom O'Connor, managing director at New York City-based Berkery Noyes, says M&A activity is being driven in part by the regulatory environment.
The Company continues negotiations with several companies that it deems significant strategic acquisition/merger prospects. To assist the Company in assessing its strategic plans, the Company has retained the investment advisory firm of Berkery, Noyes & Co.
While the world has been distracted by HP's baffling $10.2 billion purchase of Autonomy and Microsoft's surprising $9 billion buy of Skype, EMC/VMware and Google have been snapping up dozens of software companies throughout 2011.
Merger and acquisition activity in the information sector (media, software and online companies) was up 17% quarter on quarter in Q3 2011, reaching 108 transactions, according to a new report from investment bank Berkery Noyes.
What is clear from all of the transactions on the EM Mergers and Acquisitions Index for the third quarter is that technology is central to almost all of them.
In its Q3 trends report, Berkery Noyes noted the value of the 768 mergers and acquisitions at $39.4 billion, down slightly from that same quarter last year, ...
Berkery Noyes, specializing in information content and technology industries research, attributed the sharp increase in transaction value to the Blackstone Group’s announced third quarter acquisition of Emdeon for $3.03 billion, the largest transaction thus far in 2011.
According to a report from investment bank Berkery Noyes on mergers and acquisitions among information and technology companies serving pharma and healthcare, transaction value slowed 6% in the third quarter vs. the second. However, transaction value rose 245%.
John Shea says the education sector - across the board - is a sector to watch for the remainder of the year. "M&A volume was ghastly in the education space during the first half of 2011, but things started to look up during the third quarter when a number of large deals were announced," says Shea.
The anticipation of and response to the actual Federal Rules of Civil Procedure revisions in 2006 entailed a tremendous growth opportunity for e-discovery companies and fostered a spate of deals.
According to Tom O'Connor, the fastest way to grow is to acquire the best small business out there. O’Connor also noted, “Volume is up, but price per deal is down because the real action is in smaller, privately-held companies.”
Vivek Kamath, the managing director at Berkery Noyes who specializes in the education market, adds further fuel to some of our own past observations when he is quoted in the article as saying that companies that offer integrated services will likely thrive, whereas those that are offering limited niche solutions will struggle.
Smaller deals, less than $100m in enterprise value, will trump their larger counterparts in upcoming healthcare M&A, says Thomas O'Connor, managing director at Berkery Noyes, in this video interview with The Deal Pipeline.
At the mid-year point, the number of deals announced stands at 112, compared to 140 for the first six months of 2010 and 81 for the first six months of 2009, according to investment bank Berkery Noyes.
As an investment firm, it would make sense for Berkery Noyes to focus on education; its website states the industry’s revenue in 2010 was $68.5 billion, with money flowing in from instructional materials, education and administrative software, and to public and private schools and institutions.
Tools for data collection and analysis are thriving in the K-12 market, says a new report by Berkery Noyes, an independent investment bank.
According to investment banking firm Berkery Noyes, this made it one of the most valuable transactions of first half 2011.
Berkery Noyes data shows that while total aggregate deal value fell 38 percent to $2.2 billion from $3.5 billion in 2nd Half 2010, transaction volume remained relatively consistent, a decrease of only seven transactions compared to the 1st Half 2010.
Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) has acquired the financial software company Strata Decision Technology. Roughly six months ago the company turned to John Shea and Jeffrey Smith of Berkery, Noyes, & Co., to assist with an auction process.
The Berkery Noyes 2011 Half Year Trends Report lists all of the notable purchases by tech companies in the first half of the year.
The pace of merger and acquisition activity in the Internet and mobile industries accelerated in the first six months of 2011 compared with the same period a year ago, according to a report from investment banking firm Berkery Noyes.
A study released by Berkery Noyes examines the acquisition and merger tendencies of the online and mobile industry. Beyond a continuing increase in activity for the industry on the whole, both Google and Microsoft have been especially active in the first half of 2011.
“From my view, sometimes something—whether it’s a joint venture or some kind of commercial relationship and not even an M&A—could be transpiring, but people who aren’t close to it and are just kind of looking in maybe think that there’s something bigger there than there really is,” said John Guzzo, a managing director at investment bank Berkery Noyes.
Investment banking firm Berkery Noyes released data Wednesday showing M&A activity in the media and marketing sector increased 14% so far this year over the previous six months, while dollars spent soared 68%.
The number of transactions increased 14% to 644 in the first half of the year compared with the year-earlier period, according to a report from Berkery, Noyes & Co. called “Half Year Mergers and Acquisitions Trends Report for the Media & Marketing Industry.”
Berkery Noyes: Media and entertainment investment banker Evan Klein has signed on as media and marketing firm’s managing director.
Evan Klein joined Berkery, Noyes & Co. LLC as a managing director to head the entertainment practice and co-lead the media and marketing services group.
HMP acquired the monthly publications for an undisclosed price from London-based United Business Media. Media investment bank Berkery Noyes advised UBM on the sale.
“A lot of shareholders had been former employees for a long time, so I think there was a desire to get them some liquidity," said Tom O'Connor, the managing director of Berkery Noyes in New York.
Berkery Noyes, an independent investment bank specializing in the information content and technology industries, released its First Quarter 2011 Software Industry M&A Report.
NY based Berkery Noyes, an independent investment bank specializing in the information content and technology industries, released its First Quarter 2011 Media Industry M&A Report this week.
Both the volume and aggregate value of media M&A deals in the first quarter outperformed each quarter of 2010, according to a report released by investment bank Berkery, Noyes & Co.
Some $13.8 billion in deals were transacted in the first quarter of 2011 -- that's more than half of the $28.6 billion posted for all of 2010, according to investment bankers Berkery Noyes.
The pace of media deal-making in early 2011 is outpacing 2010 considerably, according to the latest tracking from Berkery Noyes.
After a disappointing fourth quarter of 2010 (with $2.4 billion in transaction value) in the media industry, investment bank Berkery Noyes reports an upswing for first quarter 2011, to the tune of $13.8 billion in transactions.
The median EBITDA multiple for software deals rose from 10x in 2009 to 11.9x in 2010, according to investment bank Berkery Noyes, while the median revenue multiple jumped from 1.5x to 1.8x.
The morning sessions includes ‘Show me the money!’ taking a look at how to create out-of-the-box revenue streams, led by David Audrain, president and CEO of Messe Frankfurt North America, with panelists Kathleen Thomas, managing director of Berkery Noyes, Michael Sanchez, CEO of OurBond, and Keith Rudy, CFO of ExtremeTix.
“Within education technology, you are going to see momentum for deals like that," Berkery Noyes (New York) managing director Vivek Kamath told EER. "Publishers will not be buying ‘me-too’ type products, but will be looking for content that differentiates itself from the traditional with elements like animation and gaming, as well as acquisitions that fundamentally change the way content is delivered," he said.
Berkery Noyes managing director John Guzzo sits down for a one-on-one interview with HousingWire to discuss M&A in the financial technology industry.
“Private equity is hot, hot, hot for companies in the information sector." That’s according to John Shea, COO of Berkery Noyes, a New York investment bank which advises on tracks deals in the information sector.
John Shea, chief operating officer of investment bank Berkery Noyes, isn't a big fan of the piecemeal deal. In particular, he takes issue with the 'right of first refusal' agreement that is usually a component to these transactions. "We actually advise against it," he describes, noting that it can have "a dampening effect" on the overall valuation down the line.”
It’s been said that the state of the technology industry is a bellwether for the larger global economy. At least that’s the view of John Shea, COO at boutique investment bank Berkery Noyes. "M&A is an indicator of people’s view of the economy three or four years down the road," he said.
In January, for instance, Berkery, Noyes & Co. reported the number of media and information deals increased to 687 last year, a 27% bounce from 2009. The value of those deals totaled $24.0 billion, a 35% plunge from the previous year, which saw several huge deals, such as Thomson Corp.'s $17.58 billion acquisition of Reuters Group.
A 2010 M&A trends report from investment banking firm Berkery Noyes finds media industry transaction volume on the rise (up 27 percent) even as total transaction values fell 35 percent in 2010 compared to the year before, from $37 billion to $24 billion.
Plenty of deals cropped up last year in the financial IT industry, and it may be ripe for even more in 2011. According to mid-market investment bank Berkery Noyes, deals increased 30 percent to 238 in 2010 from 183 in 2009, and transaction value increased 27 percent to $20.52 billion in 2010 from $16.14 billion in 2009.
The total number of deals also jumped - by 13 percent to 224 last year from 199 in 2009, according to Berkery Noyes, which noted there were 53 financially sponsored transactions in 2010, with an aggregate value of $2.8 billion. By comparison, there were 171 strategic deals.
Berkery Noyes said Morningstar was the most active acquirer in the space, which serves as further evidence that the independent investment research industry is experiencing consolidation.
At this time, virtually every loan origination solution provider is considering a merger and acquisition (M&A) event, specifically with an eye toward becoming or being part of a larger end-to-end solution.
Kathleen Thomas, managing director of Berkery, Noyes & Co., is optimistic about M&A activity in b2b media this year. “We're seeing a lot of strategic deals in the small-to-midsize range,” she said. “The appetite is coming back slowly but surely.”
A report from Berkery, Noyes & Co. tabulated that the number of deals increased to 687 last year, a 27% bounce compared with 2009.
In a statement accompanying the report, Berkery Noyes CIO James Berkery said, “Multiples have started to make a return to pre-crisis levels. There are more deals happening and there are higher valuations. While we’re not at the levels we saw in 2007, I think we’re well on the road to recovery.”
LRP Publications, which serves the legal, government and education markets, sold its Public Employment Group and Bankruptcy/Banking Products Group to Thomson Reuters. Berkery, Noyes & Co. handled the deal.
There was a 27% rise in deals to 687 last year, according to Berkery Noyes, an investment bank specializing in the information content and technology industries.
"Deals like this serve as confirmation for others considering similar acquisitions," said John Guzzo, managing director at New York City-based investment bank Berkery Noyes. "The companies that offer validation, verification and/or valuation solutions are in high demand."
