“Private companies are taking advantage of the healthcare M&A markets to capitalize on attractive valuation levels, an increased breadth of buyers and the favorable tax treatment that will go away next year,” said Berkery Noyes managing director Jon Krieger.
Companies specializing in cloud computing infrastructure technologies were attractive acquisition targets in 2011, according to a report from Berkery Noyes. “We saw twice the number of deals and three times the volume in terms of money spent, going from $4 billion in 2010 to $15 billion in 2011,” James Berkery, CIO of Berkery Noyes said.
While private equity firms accounted for some of the largest transactions struck in the media and marketing space, they were still largely outpaced by corporate acquirers. “Strategic buyers have a tremendous amount of cash and they're using that to facilitate growth,” said Berkery Managing Director Evan Klein.
It’s a seller’s market for young and small companies that have cornered any technology related to security, mobile wallets or Near Field Communication technology, says Peter Ognibene, managing director at Berkery Noyes.
Many of 2011’s highest-profile transactions in K-12 involved content companies and technology companies. "The level of activity is higher than it ever has been before,” said Mary Jo Zandy, the managing director of Berkery Noyes, which both tracks and advises companies in merger and acquisition deals.
“We’re seeing a lot of interest from both strategic and private equity buyers looking to acquire private HIT companies to penetrate the healthcare market,” said Berkery Noyes managing director Jon Krieger.
In an article written by Berkery Noyes managing director Evan Klein, the factors that marketing service companies should consider before going to market are evaluated in depth.
Investors also see a growing market in digital education companies. In 2011, deals in the ed-tech sphere totaled $10 billion, which was flat compared with the prior year, but up from $5.4 billion in 2009, according to figures just released by investment banking firm Berkery Noyes.
Evan Klein, managing director of Berkery, Noyes, explained how digital spending has constricted b-to-b media activity and discussed some areas where b-to-b media companies might be looking to buy in the future.
“SaaS providers are constantly updating their systems to reflect knowledge learned from one customer and making it available for all customers,” said Berkery Noyes managing director Jon Krieger.
WebMD’s facing more competition for the ads it is getting, sites like Everyday Health and Patients Like Me. And some of those competitors offer something extra to advertisers, because users register and give them personal information, says managing director Tom O’Connor.
Healthx's selling points included its large customer base and the technology platform it built over 15 years, according to managing director Jon Krieger, who said that with expenditures in the health-care sector rising, health providers and insurers are always looking to reduce costs.
Valuations for the deals done for the large companies in growth markets in education are at record levels, Mary Jo Zandy, managing director at the investment bank Berkery Noyes.
Paris-based Publicis Groupe, the parent of Digitas, Starcom MediaVest Group and Zenith Optimedia Group, was the “most active acquirer by volume” between 2009 and 2011, according to a year-end media and marketing industry mergers and acquisitions report released late Wednesday by investment bank Berkery Noyes.
Below is a list of the top 10 deals in terms of payout for 2011, which had bested the previous year’s transaction values by the third fiscal quarter, according to financial advisory Berkery Noyes.
And as there's no reason to expect an improvement in conditions anytime soon, WebMD may be looking to make some big changes to its business model – changes that could rattle investors, says Tom O'Connor, managing director of media banker Berkery Noyes.
According to Jon Krieger, managing director in healthcare investment banking for Berkery Noyes, corporate borrowers have learned to borrow when they can after extended periods of illiquidity. "The debt markets had essentially been closed for a long time," Krieger said, "and with the economy improving, the ability to borrow has improved as well."
Tom O'Connor, managing director at New York City-based Berkery Noyes, says M&A activity is being driven in part by the regulatory environment.
The Company continues negotiations with several companies that it deems significant strategic acquisition/merger prospects. To assist the Company in assessing its strategic plans, the Company has retained the investment advisory firm of Berkery, Noyes & Co.
While the world has been distracted by HP's baffling $10.2 billion purchase of Autonomy and Microsoft's surprising $9 billion buy of Skype, EMC/VMware and Google have been snapping up dozens of software companies throughout 2011.
Merger and acquisition activity in the information sector (media, software and online companies) was up 17% quarter on quarter in Q3 2011, reaching 108 transactions, according to a new report from investment bank Berkery Noyes.
What is clear from all of the transactions on the EM Mergers and Acquisitions Index for the third quarter is that technology is central to almost all of them.
In its Q3 trends report, Berkery Noyes noted the value of the 768 mergers and acquisitions at $39.4 billion, down slightly from that same quarter last year, ...
Berkery Noyes, specializing in information content and technology industries research, attributed the sharp increase in transaction value to the Blackstone Group’s announced third quarter acquisition of Emdeon for $3.03 billion, the largest transaction thus far in 2011.
New York-based investment banking firm Berkery Noyes says third-quarter activity dropped 23% to $10.4 billion from $13.5 billion in the third quarter of 2010 -- although there were more transactions: 348 versus 317. The largest deal was Bloomberg L.P.’s acquisition of BNA for $963 million.
According to a report from investment bank Berkery Noyes on mergers and acquisitions among information and technology companies serving pharma and healthcare, transaction value slowed 6% in the third quarter vs. the second. However, transaction value rose 245%.
Evan Klein, managing director of Berkery, Noyes, said strategic buyers are driving most of the M&A market because they are “flush with cash.”
John Shea, chief operating officer of New York investment bank Berkery Noyes, says the education sector - across the board - is a sector to watch for the remainder of the year. "M&A volume was ghastly in the education space during the first half of 2011, but things started to look up during the third quarter when a number of large deals were announced," says Shea.
The anticipation of and response to the actual Federal Rules of Civil Procedure revisions in 2006 entailed a tremendous growth opportunity for e-discovery companies and fostered a spate of deals.
According to Tom O'Connor, the fastest way to grow is to acquire the best small business out there.
Vivek Kamath, the managing director at Berkery Noyes who specializes in the education market, adds further fuel to some of our own past observations when he is quoted in the article as saying that companies that offer integrated services will likely thrive, whereas those that are offering limited niche solutions will struggle.
Smaller deals, less than $100m in enterprise value, will trump their larger counterparts in upcoming healthcare M&A, says Thomas O'Connor, managing director at Berkery Noyes, in this video interview with The Deal Pipeline.
At the mid-year point, the number of deals announced stands at 112, compared to 140 for the first six months of 2010 and 81 for the first six months of 2009, according to investment bank Berkery Noyes.
As an investment firm, it would make sense for Berkery Noyes to focus on education; its website states the industry’s revenue in 2010 was $68.5 billion, with money flowing in from instructional materials, education and administrative software, and to public and private schools and institutions.
Tools for data collection and analysis are thriving in the K-12 market, says a new report by Berkery Noyes, an independent investment bank.
According to investment banking firm Berkery Noyes, this made it one of the most valuable transactions of first half 2011.
Berkery Noyes data shows that while total aggregate deal value fell 38 percent to $2.2 billion from $3.5 billion in 2nd Half 2010, transaction volume remained relatively consistent, a decrease of only seven transactions compared to the 1st Half 2010. Even in this challenging deal climate, median revenue multiples for the industry have risen for the fourth consecutive half year.
The Berkery Noyes 2011 Half Year Trends Report lists all of the notable purchases by tech companies in the first half of the year.
The pace of merger and acquisition activity in the Internet and mobile industries accelerated in the first six months of 2011 compared with the same period a year ago, according to a report from investment banking firm Berkery Noyes.
A study released by Berkery Noyes examines the acquisition and merger tendencies of the online and mobile industry. Beyond a continuing increase in activity for the industry on the whole, both Google and Microsoft have been especially active in the first half of 2011.
“From my view, sometimes something—whether it’s a joint venture or some kind of commercial relationship and not even an M&A—could be transpiring, but people who aren’t close to it and are just kind of looking in maybe think that there’s something bigger there than there really is,” said John Guzzo, a managing director at investment bank Berkery Noyes.
Mergers & acquisitions in the media and marketing services sector may be up in volume by 14 percent, but the real jump occurred in transaction value, up 67 percent from $17.3 billion in the last half of 2010 to $28.9 billion in the first half of 2011, according to investment banking firm Berkery Noyes.
The number of transactions increased 14% to 644 in the first half of the year compared with the year-earlier period, according to a report from Berkery, Noyes & Co. called “Half Year Mergers and Acquisitions Trends Report for the Media & Marketing Industry.”
Investment banking firm Berkery Noyes released data Wednesday showing M&A activity in the media and marketing sector increased 14% so far this year over the previous six months, while dollars spent soared 68%.
Berkery Noyes: Media and entertainment investment banker Evan Klein has signed on as media and marketing firm’s managing director.
Evan Klein joined Berkery, Noyes & Co. LLC as a managing director to head the entertainment practice and co-lead the media and marketing services group.
New managing director will serve as the lead for the NY firm's entertainment practice and co-head of media and marketing services.
HMP acquired the monthly publications for an undisclosed price from London-based United Business Media. Media investment bank Berkery Noyes advised UBM on the sale.
“A lot of shareholders had been former employees for a long time, so I think there was a desire to get them some liquidity," said Tom O'Connor, the managing director of Berkery Noyes in New York.
Berkery Noyes, an independent investment bank specializing in the information content and technology industries, released its First Quarter 2011 Software Industry M&A Report.
NY based Berkery Noyes, an independent investment bank specializing in the information content and technology industries, released its First Quarter 2011 Media Industry M&A Report this week.
Both the volume and aggregate value of media M&A deals in the first quarter outperformed each quarter of 2010, according to a report released by investment bank Berkery, Noyes & Co.
Some $13.8 billion in deals were transacted in the first quarter of 2011 -- that's more than half of the $28.6 billion posted for all of 2010, according to investment bankers Berkery Noyes.
The pace of media deal-making in early 2011 is outpacing 2010 considerably, according to the latest tracking from Berkery Noyes.
After a disappointing fourth quarter of 2010 (with $2.4 billion in transaction value) in the media industry, investment bank Berkery Noyes reports an upswing for first quarter 2011, to the tune of $13.8 billion in transactions.
The median EBITDA multiple for software deals rose from 10x in 2009 to 11.9x in 2010, according to investment bank Berkery Noyes, while the median revenue multiple jumped from 1.5x to 1.8x.
The morning sessions includes ‘Show me the money!’ taking a look at how to create out-of-the-box revenue streams, led by David Audrain, president and CEO of Messe Frankfurt North America, with panelists Kathleen Thomas, managing director of Berkery Noyes, Michael Sanchez, CEO of OurBond, and Keith Rudy, CFO of ExtremeTix.
“Within education technology, you are going to see momentum for deals like that," Berkery Noyes (New York) managing director Vivek Kamath told EER. "Publishers will not be buying ‘me-too’ type products, but will be looking for content that differentiates itself from the traditional with elements like animation and gaming, as well as acquisitions that fundamentally change the way content is delivered," he said.
“Private equity is hot, hot, hot for companies in the information sector." That’s according to John Shea, COO of Berkery Noyes, a New York investment bank which advises on tracks deals in the information sector.
John Shea, chief operating officer of investment bank Berkery Noyes, isn't a big fan of the piecemeal deal. In particular, he takes issue with the 'right of first refusal' agreement that is usually a component to these transactions. "We actually advise against it," he describes, noting that it can have "a dampening effect" on the overall valuation down the line.”
It’s been said that the state of the technology industry is a bellwether for the larger global economy. At least that’s the view of John Shea, COO at boutique investment bank Berkery Noyes. "M&A is an indicator of people’s view of the economy three or four years down the road," he said.
In January, for instance, Berkery, Noyes & Co. reported the number of media and information deals increased to 687 last year, a 27% bounce from 2009. The value of those deals totaled $24.0 billion, a 35% plunge from the previous year, which saw several huge deals, such as Thomson Corp.'s $17.58 billion acquisition of Reuters Group.
A 2010 M&A trends report from investment banking firm Berkery Noyes finds media industry transaction volume on the rise (up 27 percent) even as total transaction values fell 35 percent in 2010 compared to the year before, from $37 billion to $24 billion.
“The pharma/healthcare information and technology (“HIT”) mergers and acquisitions market was robust in 2010 as buyers looked to acquire rapidly growing companies in highly attractive niches to accelerate their own growth and offer fuller suites of world-class products to the dynamic and growing healthcare marketplace,” said Tom O’Connor, Managing Director in Berkery Noyes’ Healthcare and Life Sciences group. “In 2011, we expect to see increased deal flow and attractive prices for sellers from both strategic and financial buyers.”
Plenty of deals cropped up last year in the financial IT industry, and it may be ripe for even more in 2011. According to mid-market investment bank Berkery Noyes, deals increased 30 percent to 238 in 2010 from 183 in 2009, and transaction value increased 27 percent to $20.52 billion in 2010 from $16.14 billion in 2009.
The total number of deals also jumped - by 13 percent to 224 last year from 199 in 2009, according to Berkery Noyes, which noted there were 53 financially sponsored transactions in 2010, with an aggregate value of $2.8 billion. By comparison, there were 171 strategic deals.
"More deals have been done in the investment research vertical than any other," said Christopher Young, a managing director in the Berkery Noyes FinTech group. "Due to continued low trading volumes, the elimination of federal funds and the continued level of issuer lawsuits, it is anticipated that consolidation will continue into the near future."
At this time, virtually every loan origination solution provider is considering a merger and acquisition (M&A) event, specifically with an eye toward becoming or being part of a larger end-to-end solution.
Kathleen Thomas, managing director of Berkery, Noyes & Co., is optimistic about M&A activity in b2b media this year. “We're seeing a lot of strategic deals in the small-to-midsize range,” she said. “The appetite is coming back slowly but surely.”
A report from Berkery, Noyes & Co. tabulated that the number of deals increased to 687 last year, a 27% bounce compared with 2009.
In a statement accompanying the report, Berkery Noyes CIO James Berkery said, “Multiples have started to make a return to pre-crisis levels. There are more deals happening and there are higher valuations. While we’re not at the levels we saw in 2007, I think we’re well on the road to recovery.”
LRP Publications, which serves the legal, government and education markets, sold its Public Employment Group and Bankruptcy/Banking Products Group to Thomson Reuters. Berkery, Noyes & Co. handled the deal.
There was a 27% rise in deals to 687 last year, according to Berkery Noyes, an investment bank specializing in the information content and technology industries.
"Deals like this serve as confirmation for others considering similar acquisitions," said John Guzzo, managing director at New York City-based investment bank Berkery Noyes. "The companies that offer validation, verification and/or valuation solutions are in high demand."
