2011-01-18 Berkery Noyes Releases 2010 Financial Technology & Information Industry Merger & Acquisition Trends

Berkery Noyes, a leading middle market investment bank, has released its 2010 Financial Technology & Information M&A Trends Report. This report analyzes merger and acquisition activity in the Financial Technology Industry in 2010 and compares it with activity in the three previous years.

Both total transaction volume and value saw marked increases this year. Total transaction volume increased by 30 percent from 183 in 2009 to 238 in 2010 and total transaction value increased by 27 percent from $16.14 billion in 2009 to $20.52 billion in 2010.

Capital Markets remained the largest segment by deal volume in 2010, yet only Insurance has made gains in each of the past four years. Indeed, Insurance saw its largest growth in the last four years, rising 19 percent in deal activity over 2009.

Based on known transaction values, almost one third of 2010’s transactions took place at values between $7.4 and $54.6 million. This figure is calculated on a logarithmic scale using the known transaction values and a Gaussian distribution.

“More deals have been done in the investment research vertical than any other,” said Christopher Young, a managing director in the Berkery Noyes FinTech group. “Due to continued low trading volumes, the elimination of federal funds and the continued level of issuer lawsuits, it is anticipated that consolidation will continue into the near future.”

Morningstar, Inc. was the most active acquirer in the space, which serves as further evidence that the independent investment research industry is experiencing consolidation.