Full Year 2019 Private Equity Industry Trends

2019 Key Highlights 

The Finance vertical’s largest sponsored deal in 2019 was Thoma Bravo’s acquisition of Ellie Mae, a software provider that serves the residential mortgage sector, for $3.31 billion.

The Healthcare vertical’s largest sponsored deal in 2019 was EQT and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s (“CPPIB”) acquisition of a majority stake in Waystar, a revenue cycle management (RCM) provider, for $2.7 billion.

The Education vertical’s largest sponsored deal in 2019 was Thoma Bravo’s announced acquisition of Instructure, which is known in particular for its Canvas learning management system (LMS), for $1.86 billion.

2019 Key Trends

Total transaction volume in 2019 increased by 11 percent over 2018, from 910 to 1,012.

Total transaction value in 2019 rose by eight percent over 2018, from $93.59 billion to $101.38 billion.

The median revenue multiple improved from 2.7x in 2018 to 3.5x in 2019. The median EBITDA multiple remained nearly constant during this timeframe at 14.1x.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 2,744 private equity transactions in the Information Industry between 2017 and 2019, of which 352 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate value to be $185.17 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 2,392 undisclosed transactions to be $80.93 billion, totaling $266.10 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 2.8x revenue and 13.5x EBITDA.

The largest sponsored deal in the Information Industry tracked by Berkery Noyes between 2017 and 2019 was a Blackstone Group led consortium’s acquisition of a 55 percent stake in Thomson Reuters’ Financial & Risk division for $11 billion in 2018.