Friday, April 06, 2012

U.S. media M&A activity down 7% in Q1

News this week: Media-focused investment bank, The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc. (JEGI) reported M&A activity in the U.S. media market for the first quarter of 2012. The total number deals in the quarter was 333, which is a new record and an increase of 51% year-on-year. However, the total value of deals dropped 7% from last year’s US$11.1 billion to US$10.3 billion in the first quarter of 2012.

In the quarter, 14 deals involving exhibitions & conferences accounted for US$258 million, compared with six deals valued at US$34 million in the same period of 2011.

In the B2B media sector, the number of deals and deal value both increased. A total of nine B2B media deals occurred in the quarter, up 125% from last year’s four deals. Value of the deals jumped to US$63 million in Q4 2012, four times that of 2011’s US$15 million.

The number of deals involving B2B online media & technology dropped 26%, from 23 down to 17 in the quarter; while the deal value contracted 94% to just US$182 million, down from US$2.8 billion in 2011. The decrease in value of deals in the sector was due to the spike created by eBay’s US$2.4 billion acquisition of GSI Commerce last year.

This post is excerpted from BSG's weekly e-newsletter which is part of our subscription research service, BSG Tracker. Visit our website to find out more about this service. You can also follow us on Twitter for all the latest updates.

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