VOLUME, VALUE, AND VALUATIONS TRENDING UPWARD IN THE FINTECH INDUSTRY

Transaction volume in Berkery Noyes’ Financial Technology and Information report for third quarter 2015 increased nine percent over the past three months. Aggregate deal value more than doubled, from $9.5 billion to $20.9 billion.

This was the peak for value throughout the past year-and-a-half on a quarterly basis and was attributable in large part to FIS’ announced acquisition of financial software company SunGard Data Systems for $9.1 billion. In terms of valuations, the median revenue multiple from 2014 through the first three quarters of 2015 improved slightly from 3.0x to 3.2x, while the median EBITDA multiple rose from 13.3x to 15.2x.

M&A activity in the Capital Markets segment increased nine percent over the previous quarter and 58 percent year-to-date when compared to the corresponding timeframe in 2014. Deutsche Börse Group completed the segment’s two largest deals during third quarter 2015 with the acquisition of 360T, a provider of web-based trading technology, for $796 million; and joint ventures STOXX and Indexium, two European-based index groups, from SIX Group for $701 million.

Other notable Capital Markets related transactions included FactSet Research Systems’ acquisition of Portware, a developer of broker-neutral automated trading solutions, for $265 million; Computer Sciences Corporation’s acquisition of Fixnetix, a provider of outsourced high speed trading, data and IT services, for $113 million; Playtech’s acquisition of Ava Trade, a foreign exchange trading platform, for $105 million; DMA Corporation’s acquisition of Baker Hill Corporation, which offers relationship management, credit-origination and risk management solutions, for $100 million; and Blackrock’s acquisition of FutureAdvisor, an technology-enabled digital wealth management company. “Big data is increasing the demands on trading, modeling, executing, and portfolio management,” said Peter Ognibene, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes. “The variety of risk profiling and stress testing that financial institutions will be subjected to requires more analytical capabilities.”

There was also a 16 percent year-over-year volume increase in the Banking segment, from 44 to 51 transactions. Notable segment deals during third quarter 2015 included Envestnet’s acquisition of Yodlee, a financial data aggregator and provider of online financial tools, for $590 million; and SS&C’s acquisition of Primatics Financial, an accounting, forecasting, regulatory reporting, reserving and stress testing solutions company, for $122 million. SS&C completed a major deal earlier in the year as well with the acquisition of Advent Software, a provider of portfolio management and accounting systems software, for $2.6 billion.