Full Year 2024 Media, Marketing, & Online Industry Trends

2024 KEY HIGHLIGHTS

SilverLake’s announced acquisition of Endeavor was the largest Media, Marketing & Online transaction in 2024, with a price of $21.4 billion.

Seven of the top ten highest value deals during the year were backed by financial sponsors.

There were 188 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $52.45 billion, representing 17 percent ofthe total volume and 47 percent of the total value, respectively.

2024 KEY TRENDS

Total transaction volume in 2024 fell by 16 percent over 2023, from 1,312 to 1,103.

The segment with the largest transaction volume in 2024 was Marketing with 367 transactions.

Total transaction value in 2024 increased by 44 percent over 2023, from $77 billion to $111 billion.

The median EBITDA multiple declined from 10.5x in 2023 to 9.3x in 2024. The median revenue multiple remained constant at 1.4x.

M&A MARKET OVERVIEW

Berkery Noyes tracked 4,022 Media, Marketing & Online transactions between 2022 and 2024, of which 763 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate value to be $297 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 3,259 undisclosed transactions to be $51 billion, totaling $348 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 1.67x revenue and 10.44x EBITDA.

Over the past three years, deals in the $10-$160 million range received a median enterprise value multiple of 2.1x revenue, compared to 3.8x revenue for those in the $160 million and above range.