Q3 2018 Private Equity Industry Trends

The largest transaction in Q3 2018 was the announced acquisition of Dun & Bradstreet by an investment consortium that includes Thomas H. Lee Partners and CC Capital, for $6.7 billion. Dun & Bradstreet provides commercial data, analytics, and insights for businesses.
In the Healthcare vertical, the most active acquirer through the 1st 3 Quarters of 2018, either directly or through an affiliated business, was Arsenal Capital Partners with eight transactions. Three of these deals occurred in Q3 2018: Pirana Software, KMR Group, and Metrics Champion Consortium.

Total transaction volume in the 1st 3 Quarters of 2018 increased by seven percent over the 1st 3 Quarters of 2017, from 618 to 659.
Total transaction value in the 1st 3 Quarters of 2018 rose by three percent over the 1st 3 Quarters of 2017, from $61.1 billion to $62.3 billion.

The median revenue multiple on a year-over-year basis remained constant at 2.5x.
The median EBITDA multiple on a year-over-year basis moved upward slightly from 11.8x to 12.5x.

The top ten deals by value have seen two new additions since our half year report. In addition the previously mentioned acquisition of Dun & Bradstreet, Insight Venture Partners announced its acquisition of Episerver, a web content management, digital commerce, and digital marketing solutions company, for $1.2 billion.
These two transactions, with an aggregate value of $7.9 billion, represented 13 percent of transaction value in the 1st 3 Quarters of 2018 and 46 percent of Q3 2018 transaction value.

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