1st Half 2009 Key Highlights

  • The most active buyers in the Media Industry, in terms of volume of transactions announced for the 1st Half of 2009, were Time Warner, Inc. and Veronis Suhler Stevenson with 4 transactions each. These include Time Warner, Inc.’s acquisitions of Going, Inc., Patch Media Corporation, Midway Games Inc. and Snowblind Studios, and Veronis Suhler Stevenson’s acquisitions of HealthCommunities.com, Inc., Voyager Learning Company, Two Tradeshows from Technology Systems Corporation and Medical Education Partnership, Ltd.
  • The segment with the largest transaction volume for the 1st Half of 2009 was Internet Media with 59 transactions.
  • In the 1st Half of 2009, there were 40 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $2.58 billion. These figures represent 18 percent of the total volume and 49 percent of the total value, respectively.

1st Half 2009 Key Trends

  • Total transaction volume in the 1st Half of 2009 decreased by 47 percent over the 1st Half of 2008 from 421 in 2008 to 224 in 2009.
  • Total transaction value in the 1st Half of 2009 decreased by 75 percent over the 1st Half of 2008, from $18.43 billion in 2008 to $4.64 billion in 2009.
  • The segment with largest increase in value in the 1st Half of 2009 over the 1st Half of 2008 was Entertainment Content with a 10 percent increase from $557 million in 2008 to $612 million in 2009.

M&A Market Overview

Out of 1626 transactions tracked by Berkery Noyes between 2007 and the 1st Half of 2009, 572 had disclosed enterprise values with an aggregate of $166.92 billion. Using these values in a histogram on a logarithmic scale, we project an aggregate value of $24.64 billion for the 1054 undisclosed transactions. In total, we project a combined aggregate value of $191.56 billion worth of transactions over the past two and a half years.

The largest transaction tracked by Berkery Noyes between 2007 and the 1st Half of 2009 was Thomson Corporation’s merger with Reuters Group PLC for $18.18 billion.

The most active buyer in the Media Industry, in terms of volume of transactions announced between 2007 and the 1st Half of 2009, was Veronis Suhler Stevenson with 22 transactions.