Media Banker's Annual Trend Reports

From Berkery Noyes:
2013 Key Highlights

• The most active financial sponsor was Vista Equity Partners with eighteen transactions in 2013. This included four deals with disclosed values over $500 million.
• Four of the top ten highest value private equity deals in 2013 occurred in the Finance segment. The largest of these was Hellman & Friedman's acquisition of Applied Systems from Bain Capital for $1.8 billion in the Insurance subsector.
• TPG Capital was the most active private equity firm in the Health segment with eight transactions in 2013.

2013 Key Trends

• Total transaction volume in 2013 decreased by twelve percent over 2012, from 512 to 453. However, when compared to 2011, volume in 2013 underwent a four percent increase.
• Total transaction value in 2013 declined by six percent over 2012, from $43.71 billion to $41.13 billion.
• The median revenue multiple increased from 1.8x in 2012 to 2.3x in 2013. The median EBITDA multiple improved from 9.8x in 2012 to 11.5x in 2013.
• In terms of secondary buyouts, or transactions completed between private equity firms, deal volume in 2013 decreased by 27 percent over 2012. This followed a 34 percent increase from 2011 to 2012.

From Whitestone Group:  Who's buying whom report (pdf)

MediaBankers (pdf)

Information Services are part of the media sector and offer business-oriented packages of news, data, insights and software tools that companies use to make decisions that drive their business. This whitepaper examines M&A activity in the Information Services industry from January 2011 through September 2013 and provides insight into the following:

• Which deals were the largest?
• Who are the most active buyers?
• Which segments of information services are the most robust for M&A?
• How does M&A volume break down by geography?
• What are the drivers of M&A in this sector?

From the Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc.(pdf)

2013 saw 14 transactions at $1 billion+ in value, with four of the top five in the Marketing & Interactive Services sector. The largest deal of the year was the $21.9 billion merger of Publicis and Omnicom, expected to close in the first half of next year. The top five also included the acquisitions of email marketer Exact Target by Salesforce.com, sports marketing agency IMG Worldwide by William Morris and Silver Lake, and shopper marketing group Valassis Communications by Harland Clarke, a unit of MacAndrews & Forbes. The only top five deal outside of marketing was the acquisition of Springer Science+Business Media by BC Partners.

The remaining top 30 deals were well diversified across sectors, including Database & Information Services with four deals, the largest being IHS’s $1.4 billion acquisition of R.L. Polk & Co.; Marketing & Interactive Services with another six deals; B2C Online Media & Technology with three deals, led by Yahoo’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr; Exhibitions & Conferences with three deals, the largest being Onex Corporation’s $950 million acquisition of Nielsen Expositions (a JEGI transaction); Healthcare Information & Technology with three deals, including Roper Industries’ $1.0 billion acquisition of Managed Healthcare Associates; Mobile Media & Technology with three deals, the largest being Baidu’s $1.8 billion acquisition of 91 Wireless Websoft; Education Information & Technology with two more deals; and Consumer Magazines with one deal, the Funke Mediengruppe $1.2 billion acquisition of Axel Springer’s Regional Magazines, Program Guides & Newspapers.

Veronis Suhler Stevenson Forecast (subscription)