How good is the current mergers and acquisitions market in b-to-b media?
One media investment banker was overheard recently declaring, "This is the best year of my life."
The banker may have been exaggerating-but not by much. This year has brought many high-profile deals, including the second-biggest b-to-b media deal since 2000: Veronis Suhler Stevenson's $650 million sale of construction industry media company Hanley Wood to an investment group headed by JPMorgan Partners. That deal was only topped by the $900 million acquisition of Advanstar Communications in 2000 by a private equity fund controlled by Credit Suisse First Boston...
From top to bottom, the action in the market has been robust, as the databases of media investment banks clearly show... Magazine deal dollar volume increased to $2.2 billion on 23 transactions in the second quarter of 2005 compared with just $82 million on 15 deals in the second quarter of 2004, according to M&A firm Whitestone Communications...
This article is reprinted with permission from btobonline.com. Copyright September 14, 2005.
