2012 Key Highlights

  • Apollo Global Management, LLC’s announced acquisition of McGraw-Hill Education was the largest industry transaction in 2012, with an acquisition price of $2.62 billion.
  • With six transactions, Pearson was the industry’s most active acquirer in 2012. Pearson’s largest transaction during the year was its acquisition of EmbanetCompass for $650 million.
  • The combined Professional Training Institutions and Technology segments accounted for 31 percent of the overall industry’s transaction volume. In addition, strategic buyers represented 71 percent of this sector’s deal flow.
  • There were 74 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $4.33 billion, representing 30 percent of the total volume and 63 percent of the total value, respectively.

2012 Key Trends

  • Total transaction volume in 2012 stayed nearly the same compared to 2011, from 251 to 250.
  • Total transaction value in 2012 decreased by 44 percent over 2011, from $11.93 billion to $6.66 billion.
  • The median revenue multiple between 2011 and 2012 remained constant at 1.6x. The median EBITDA multiple declined from 12.0x in 2011 to 10.3x in 2012.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 729 transactions between 2010 and 2012, of which 243 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate transaction value to be $24.43 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 486 undisclosed transactions to be $2.01 billion, totaling $26.44 billion worth of transactions tracked over the past three years.

Disclosed median enterprise value multiples for all segments combined in this report during the last 36 months were 1.8x revenue and 10.4x EBITDA.

Based on volume, the most active market segment that Berkery Noyes tracked between 2010 and 2012 was K-12 Media and Tech with 145 transactions.