1ST HALF 2014 KEY HIGHLIGHTS

  • The largest transaction in 1st Half 2014 was Leonard Green & Partners, L.P. and CVC Capital Partners’ acquisition of Advantage Sales and Marketing for $4.2 billion.
  • The most active acquirer year-to-date in the Education vertical was Providence Equity Partners with five transactions: PerceptIS, LLC, SIDEARM Sports Inc., Licensing Resource Group, AchieveGlobal, and MyEdu.
  • The most active acquirers year-to-date in the Healthcare vertical were Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P., Symphony Technology Group, and Vestar Capital Partners with three transactions each.

1ST HALF 2014 KEY TRENDS

  • Total transaction volume in 1st Half 2014 increased by 18 percent over 2nd Half 2013, from 235 to 278.
  • Total transaction value in 1st Half 2014 rose by 20 percent over 2nd Half 2013, from $23.35 billion to $28.10 billion.
  • The peak for deal volume and value over the past two and a half years occurred in 1st Half 2014.
  • The median revenue multiple declined from 3.0x to 2.5x. The median EBITDA multiple improved slightly 9.7x to 10.8x.
  • Eight of the industry’s top ten highest value deals in 1st Half 2014 were secondary buyouts.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 1,243 private equity transactions between 2012 and 1st Half 2014, of which 287 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate transaction value to be $92.90 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 956 undisclosed transactions to be $21.49 billion, totaling $114.39 billion worth of transactions tracked over the past two and a half years.

Disclosed median revenue multiple for all segments combined in this report in the last 30 months were 2.1x revenue and 10.0x EBITDA.