2021-07-02 Berkery Noyes Releases Media and Marketing Industry M&A Report For Half Year 2021

NEW YORK — July 2, 2021 — Berkery Noyes, an independent mid-market investment bank, today released its half year 2021 mergers and acquisitions trend report for the Media and Marketing Industry. The report analyzes M&A activity during the first half of 2021 and compares it with the four previous six-month periods from 2019 to 2020.  

Deal volume in first half 2021 remained nearly constant over second half 2020. Aggregate value increased 16 percent, from $58.81 billion to $68.08 billion.

Of note, two of the industry’s top three highest value deals year-to-date were education related: Platinum Equity’s announced acquisition of McGraw-Hill, a learning company that offers digital educational content and assessment solutions, for $6.39 billion; and Clarivate’s announced acquisition of ProQuest, which provides data and analytics to academic, research, and national institutions, for $5.32 billion.

The segment with the largest rise in volume in first half 2021 over second half 2020 was Marketing with an 18 percent gain. As for other selected industry sectors, the number of acquisitions in the B2B Publishing and Information segment fell 28 percent while the Consumer Publishing segment held constant.

Meanwhile, M&A volume in the Entertainment segment stayed about the same for the fourth consecutive half year period. Notable Entertainment transactions year-to-date included Amazon’s announced acquisition of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Studios, an entertainment company focused on the production and global distribution of film and television content, for $10.27 billion; and Electronic Arts’ announced acquisition of Glu Mobile, a global developer and publisher of mobile games, for $1.88 billion.

A copy of the MEDIA AND MARKETING INDUSTRY M&A REPORT FOR HALF YEAR 2021 is available at the Berkery Noyes website.