2015 Key Highlights

  • The largest transaction in 2015 was Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.’s acquisition of Interactive Data Corporation, a provider of financial market data and analytics, for $7.45 billion.
  • The most active acquirer in the Exhibitions and Conferences segment during the year, either directly or through an affiliated business, was Providence Equity Partners Inc. with six deals: Imago Techmedia Ltd., Urban Expositions, Border Security Expo, BB Promotion, Internet Retailing Expo and Clarion Events, Ltd.
  • There were 233 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $16.41 billion, representing 13 percent of the total volume and 15 percent of the total value, respectively.

2015 Key Trends

  • Total transaction volume in 2015 increased by eight percent over 2014, from 1,712 to 1,857.
  • Total transaction value in 2015 rose by 12 percent over 2014, from $97.07 billion to $109.01 billion.
  • The median revenue multiple moved slightly from 2.0x in 2014 to 1.9x in 2015. The median EBITDA multiple decreased from 11.0x in 2014 to 8.7x in 2015.
  • Based on value, the segment with the largest increase in 2015 over 2014 was B2B Publishing and Information, which more than doubled from $9.38 billion to $23.01 billion. B2B was also the best represented segment with five of the industry’s top ten highest value deals in 2015.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 5,267 Media & Marketing transactions between 2013 and 2015, of which 1,164 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate value to be $204.41 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 4,103 undisclosed transactions to be $75.36 billion, totaling $279.77 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 9.7x EBITDA.