Full Year 2020 Information Industry Trends

2020 Key Highlights

Nine of the industry’s top ten largest deals in 2020 were completed by strategic acquirers.

Strategic acquisitions represented 22 percent of total volume and 35 percent of total value, respectively.

2020 Key Trends

Total transaction volume in 2020 decreased by 14 percent over 2019, from 4,579 to 3,955.

On a half year basis, M&A activity improved by six percent in 2nd Half 2020 over 1st Half 2020, from 1,937 to 2,058.

Total transaction value in 2020 fell by 18 percent over 2019, from $395.89 billion to $323.11 billion.

On a half year basis, M&A value more than doubled in 2nd Half 2020 over 1st Half 2020, from $99 billion to $224.11 billion.

The median revenue multiple from 2019 to 2020 remained constant at 2.6x. The median EBITDA multiple also stayed nearly the same during this timeframe at 12.5x.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 13,000 Information Industry transactions between 2018 and 2020, of which 2,360 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate value to be $856.76 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 10,640 undisclosed transactions to be $241.35 billion, totaling $1,098.11 trillion 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 2.5x revenue and 12.4x EBITDA.

Out of 13,000 deals tracked by Berkery Noyes between 2018 and 2020, transactions valued at $160 million and above garnered a median enterprise value multiple of 4.4x revenue. In contrast, companies with transaction values between $10 million and $20 million captured a median enterprise value multiple of 1.9x revenue.