Full Year 2019 Finance Industry Trends

2019 Key Highlights

The most active acquirer in 2019 was Broadridge Financial Solutions with seven industry deals: ClearStructure Financial Technology, Appatura, Fi360, Shadow Financial Services Corporation, Financial Database Services, RPM Technologies, and Rockall Technologies.

2019 Key Trends

Total transaction volume in 2019 increased by ten percent over 2018, from 513 to 564.

Strategic volume in 2019 improved by 14 percent over 2018, from 386 to 440. Private equity backed volume declined by two percent during this timeframe, from 127 to 124.

Total transaction value in 2019 more than tripled over 2018, from $49.32 billion to $180.86 billion. Of note, there were five deals with disclosed values above $20 billion in 2019, compared to none in 2018.

The median revenue multiple shifted slightly from 3.0x in 2018 to 2.9x in 2019.

The segment with the largest rise in volume in 2019 over 2018 was Payments, which improved 18 percent, from 133 to 157 transactions.                                                       

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 1,525 Financial Technology and Information transactions between 2017 and 2019, of which 345 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate value to be $250.62 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 1,180 undisclosed transactions to be $22.26 billion, totaling $272.88 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 3.0x  revenue and 14.8x EBITDA.

The largest Financial Technology deal tracked by Berkery Noyes between 2017 and 2019 was FIS’ merger with Worldpay Group for $42.87 billion. This was also the highest value transaction ever recorded in the industry by Berkery Noyes.