Q3 2019 Finance Industry Trends

Q3 2019 Key Highlights

The largest transaction during Q3 2019 was London Stock Exchange Group’s announced acquisition of Refinitiv, a financial data analytics provider, for $27 billion.

The most active acquirer year-to-date was MasterCard with five acquisitions, two of which occurred in Q3 2019: the Corporate Services business of Nets Holding A/S for $3.2 billion; and Transactis, a digital bill-pay platform.

Q3 2019 Key Trends

Total transaction volume in the 1st 3 Quarters of 2019 improved by 14 percent over the 1st 3 Quarters of 2018, from 384 to 436.

Total transaction value in the 1st 3 Quarters of 2019 more than tripled over the 1st 3 Quarters of 2018, from $42.5 billion to $151.3 billion. Of note, there have been four deals with disclosed values above $20 billion year-to-date, compared to none in 2018.

The segment with the largest rise in volume in the 1st 3 Quarters of 2019 over the 1st 3 Quarters of 2018 was Banking with a 33 percent gain, from 30 to 40 transactions.

Multiples & Value Trends

The median revenue multiple on a year-over-year basis increased from 2.9x to 3.4x.

Top Ten Deals Through Q3 2019

The top ten deals by value have seen four new additions since our half year report, including two in the Insurance segment: Prudential Financial’s announced acquisition of Assurance IQ for $2.4 billion, plus an additional earnout of up to $1.2 billion in cash and equity; and Roper Technologies’ announced acquisition of iPipeline for $1.6 billion.

These four transactions, with an aggregate value of $34.2 billion, represented 23 percent of transaction value in the 1st 3 Quarters of 2019 and 85 percent of Q3 2019 transaction value.