Q1 2013 Information Industry Trends

Aggregate deal volume in the Information Industry fell two percent in Q1 2013. Meanwhile, transaction value declined 62 percent, from $45.3 billion in Q4 2012 to $17.4 billion in Q1 2013. The median revenue multiple between Q4 2012 and Q1 2013 decreased from 1.8x to 1.6x, while the median EBITDA multiple declined from 9.5x to 8.3x.

M&A volume during the last 15 months saw its greatest level of activity in Q2 2012. However, value reached its highest point in Q4 2012. There were two transactions that reached the $1 billion threshold in Q1 2013, compared to four in Q4 2012.

Two of the top ten highest value transactions in Q1 2013 were backed by financial sponsors. The largest overall announced deal in the quarter was CVC Capital Partners’ acquisition of Cerved Group SpA, a corporate information database, for $1.5 billion.

Two of Permira’s acquisitions were made through its portfolio company Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories. The contact center solutions provider acquired Angel.com, a cloud-based customer experience management company; and UTOPY, a speech and text analytics business focused on workforce optimization. Genesys’ $110 million acquisition of Angel.com represented a 3.8x revenue multiple.

As for the industry’s Health & Pharmaceutics segment, the largest private equity transaction in Q1 2013 was JLL Partners’ announced acquisition of BioClinica. The clinical trial management solutions company was acquired for $105 million.