Full Year 2016 Media & Marketing Industry Trends

2016 Key Highlights

• The largest deal in 2016 was AT&T’s announced acquisition of Time Warner for $105.27 billion, or $85.4 billion excluding net debt. This was the highest value acquisition ever tracked by Berkery Noyes in the Media & Marketing Industry. AT&T is planning to diversify its business beyond telecommunications with Time Warner’s vast array of programming.
• There were 208 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $27.10 billion, representing 12 percent of the total volume and 10 percent of the total value, respectively.

2016 Key Trends

• Total transaction volume in 2016 declined by five percent over 2015, from 1,900 to 1,796.
• Total transaction value in 2016 more than doubled over 2015, from $105.67 billion to $272.17 billion. If the Time Warner deal is excluded, overall value increased 58 percent.
• There were 18 acquisitions in 2016 with values above $2 billion, as opposed to nine such deals in 2015.
• The median revenue multiple shifted slightly from 2.0x in 2015 to 2.1x in 2016. The median EBITDA multiple improved from 8.7x in 2015 to 11.2x in 2016, which was nearly the same as its 2014 level.
• The segment with the largest rise in volume in 2016 over 2015 was Entertainment Content with a four percent increase, from 206 to 215 transactions.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 5,409 Media & Marketing transactions between 2014 and 2016, of which 1,154 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate value to be $390.93 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 4,255 undisclosed transactions to be $84.54 billion, totaling $475.47 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 2.0x revenue and 10.4x EBITDA.