1st Half 2019 Information Industry Trends

1ST HALF 2019 KEY HIGHLIGHTS

Six of the Information Industry’s top ten highest value deals in 1st Half 2019 were completed by strategic acquirers. These six acquisitions combined accounted for almost one-third of the industry’s aggregate value year-to-date.

There were 523 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $54.71 billion, representing 22 percent of the total volume and 37 percent of the total value, respectively.

1ST HALF 2019 KEY TRENDS

Total transaction volume in 1st Half 2019 increased by three percent over 2nd Half 2018, from 2,297 to 2,368.

As for the industry’s three horizontal markets, Software volume improved by nine percent; Online & Mobile deal volume remained nearly constant; and Media & Marketing volume declined by three percent.

Total transaction value in 1st Half 2019 fell by 29 percent over 2nd Half 2018, from $207.04 billion to $147.86 billion.

The median revenue multiple decreased from 2.8x in 2nd Half 2018 to 2.6x in 1st Half 2019. The median EBITDA multiple moved downward from 12.5x in 2nd Half 2018 to 10.6x in 1st Half 2019.

M&A MARKET OVERVIEW

Berkery Noyes tracked 11,451 Information Industry transactions between 2017 and 1st Half 2019, of which 2,248 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate transaction value to be $651.27 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 9,203 undisclosed transactions to be $174.49 billion, totaling $825.76 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 2.3x revenue and 11.5x EBITDA.

Out of 11,451 transactions tracked by Berkery Noyes in this report, we found that 2,299 financially sponsored transactions accounted for 20 percent of the total transactions, yet they totaled $264.24 billion, representing 32 percent of aggregate transaction value.