2016 Key Highlights

  • The most active acquirer in 2016, either directly or through an affiliated business, was Broadridge Financial Solutions, a provider of investor communications and technology-driven solutions, with six transactions: DST Systems’ North American Customer Communications (“NACC”) business for $410 million, technology assets from INVeSHARE for $135 million, M&O Systems, 4Sight Financial Software, Dojima and Anetics.
  • Four of the top five and seven of the top ten highest value deals during the year occurred in the Capital Markets segment.

2016 Key Trends

  • Total transaction volume in 2016 remained nearly constant over 2015, from 433 to 434.
  • Total transaction value in 2016 decreased by 26 percent over 2015, from $65.29 billion to $48.41 billion.
  • There were five transactions above the $1 billion threshold in 2016, compared to 13 such deals in 2015.
  • The median revenue multiple declined from 3.2x in 2015 to 2.3x in 2016, which was in line with the median throughout the past three years. The median EBITDA multiple improved from 11.4x in 2015 to 13.1x in 2016.
  • The segment with the largest rise in volume in 2016 over 2015 was Insurance with a 21 percent increase, from 62 to 75 transactions. The Payments segment was close behind with an 18 percent gain, from 110 to 130 transactions.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 1,245 Financial Technology and Information transactions between 2014 and 2016, of which 310 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate value to be $119.30 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 935 undisclosed transactions to be $22.49 billion, totaling $141.79 billion worth of transactions tracked over the past three years.

Disclosed median enterprise value multiples for all segments combined in this report during the last 36 months were 2.4x revenue and 11.8x EBITDA.