2011 Key Highlights

  • HP’s acquisition of Autonomy Corporation was the largest transaction for 2011, with an acquisition price of $10.28 billion.
  • The most active acquirer in 2011 was Google Inc. with 25 acquisitions: Clever Sense, Inc., RightsFlow, Inc., Apture, Inc., Katango, Inc., SocialGrapple, DailyDeal, Zagat, Zave Networks, The DealMap, Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition, Fridge, Punchd Labs Inc, SageTV, AdMeld Inc., PostRank Inc., Sparkbuy Inc., TalkBin, PushLife Inc., Green Parrot Pictures, BeatThatQuote. com Ltd., Next New Networks, Inc., Zynamics, FFlick, SayNow and eBook Technologies Inc.

2011 Key Trends

  • Total transaction volume in 2011 increased by 17 percent over 2010, from 2639 in 2010 to 3098 in 2011.
  • Total transaction value in 2011 increased by 27 percent over 2010, from $124.04 billion in 2010 to $157.91 billion in 2011.
  • The median revenue multiple increased from 1.7x in 2010 to 2.1x in 2011, while the median EBITDA multiple increased from 10.5x to 12.0x.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 7813 transactions between 2009 and 2011, of which 2505 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate transaction value to be $318.32 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 5308 undisclosed transactions to be $64.95 billion, totaling $383.27 billion worth of transactions tracked over the past three years.

The largest transaction tracked by Berkery Noyes between 2009 and 2011 was Comcast Corporation’s acquisition of NBC Universal, a subsidiary of General Electric Company, for $22.85 billion.

Based on value, the largest acquirer, either purchased direct or through a partner or affiliated business between 2009 and 2011, was Comcast Corporation, which acquired certain assets or all of 6 properties: Matchbox Pictures Pty Ltd., Monkey Kingdom Limited, The 700 Level.com, Paciolan, NBC Universal and New England Cable News.