Like a sprinting racehorse maintaining its stride on the last turn, middle-market M&A kept its pace as 2021 drew to the finish, according to GF Data’s just-released February report. Valuations in the fourth quarter averaged 7.5x, matching the elevated mark for Q3. GF Data’s 258 active private equity contributors reported on 151 transactions in the […]
Studies
Citizens Sees Bright Future for Middle Market M&A
According to a new survey by Citizens Bank, middle-market companies and private equity firms foresee an extremely strong year for the M&A market in 2022, with bullish forecasts for both deal volumes and for company valuations. The Citizens Middle Market M&A Outlook surveyed 400 senior executives at United States middle market companies and private equity […]
More Than a Feeling
The third quarter of 2021 was one of those rare periods in which actual valuations were on par with the deal community’s collective sense of a torrid seller’s market, according to GF Data’s just-released report. Average valuations in the quarter averaged 7.6x – the highest quarterly mark in GF Data’s 16-year history. The data tracking […]
Grant Thornton: M&A to Surge Over Next Six Months
According to a recent survey by Grant Thornton, the majority of merger and acquisition professionals expect a surge in deal volume, especially in the technology, retail, hospitality and insurance industries. The new survey by Grant Thornton included 44 C-suite executives, 39 private equity professionals, 40 investment bankers and 40 attorneys. Eighty-five percent of these respondents […]
Same As It Ever Was
Private deal activity in the second quarter continued to return to congenial pre-pandemic conditions with a handful of notable permutations, according to GF Data’s just-released report. The data tracking firm’s 243 active private equity contributors completed 81 transactions in the quarter meeting its deal parameters – Total Enterprise Value (TEV) of $10 million to $250 […]
Rest of 2021 to See More Deals, Higher Prices
According to the latest report from BDO, private equity and venture capital fund managers are expecting the rest of 2021 to be awash with M&A activity and heavy competition. The just-published Private Capital Pulse Survey from BDO reports that more than 90% of its survey respondents believe asset prices will increase in the next 6 […]
Being There
By Andy Greenberg Greenberg Variations Capital and GF Data® Topic A in the M&A business – like every other business right now – is the extent to which virtual meetings and other practices of the COVID-19 era will remain as conditions normalize. A few months ago, one of the leaders of Goldman Sach’s global M&A […]
Deluge of Deals Muddies the Waters
Major deal point trends appeared to reverse in the final months of 2020 – not due to a secular change in direction, but due to the deluge of deals that closed in the fourth quarter – according to GF Data’s just-released Spring 2021 Key Deal Terms report. “The extended seller’s market of the past decade […]
Private Equity Healthcare Deals Reach Record
Bain & Company’s latest Global Healthcare Private Equity and M&A Report – the firm’s tenth annual issue – was just released and it outlines the impacts of COVID-19 on healthcare dealmaking across regions and sectors. According to Bain, the COVID-19 pandemic rocked global healthcare systems and communities to their core in 2020. Healthcare investors realized […]
The Tide is High, But We’re Holding On
After being buffeted by two COVID-19 shocked quarters in the middle of 2020, middle-market M&A managed to ride the wave in the fourth quarter, closing with a burst of productive activity, according to GF Data’s just- released year-end report. GF Data’s 230 active private equity contributors completed 117 transactions in Q4 2020 meeting the data […]
Live Cat Bounce
Transactions completed in the third quarter of 2020 suggest a market stunned by the pandemic, but with a cat-like capacity to land on its feet. GF Data’s 228 active private equity contributors completed 50 transactions in the quarter meeting the data tracking firm’s parameters – Total Enterprise Value (TEV) of $10 million to $250 million […]
Lincoln – Sponsors and Lenders Beating COVID-19
Lincoln International has released the results of its third-quarter middle-market index (Lincoln MMI) which tracks changes in the enterprise values of US-based privately-held middle-market companies—primarily those owned by private equity firms. Lincoln’s new report is based on its database of over 2,200 private equity portfolio companies with median EBITDA of approximately $30 million and shows […]
Next Year to Bring New Ways for New Deals
Despite the ongoing economic uncertainty from the pandemic, many private equity professionals are optimistic about the outlook for 2021 and are looking to alternative merger and acquisition methods to navigate the crisis and pursue new disruptive business growth strategies. According to Deloitte’s “Future of M&A Trends Survey” of 1,000 U.S. corporate M&A executives and private […]
BDO Sees Stronger 2021
BDO has just published its U.S. Private Capital Pulse Fall 2020 Survey which finds that even as they prepare for a second wave of the coronavirus, three-quarters of private equity firms expect the economy to turn around in 2021. Three-quarters of all fund managers surveyed expect the economy to improve next year—28% expect it to […]
KKR Sees “The New Normal”
KKR has released a new report titled “The New Normal” which explores the long-term implications of COVID-19 on cities and consumer trends. “Following a decade of relative prosperity, overlapping calamities in 2020 have brought economic activity to a near halt. The combination of longstanding political and social strife has met with an unforeseen health and […]
Paul Hastings Sees Active IPO Market
While the U.S. IPO market ground to a halt this spring due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in May the market came roaring back, allowing companies with IPO plans in the pipeline before the start of the pandemic to access the market. The summer resurgence has set the stage for an active […]
Now We Know Some Stuff
By Andy Greenberg, CEO GF Data and Greenberg Variations Capital —– Back in April, I wrote a commentary titled “Nobody Knows Anything” that described the immediate challenges facing the M&A industry in the wake of a global health crisis that rendered inoperative most methods of business valuation. Since then, we’ve all tracked the successive waves […]
The Deals Done – and Not Done
GF Data’s just-released report for the second quarter of 2020 provides a clear view of the M&A marketplace in the months following the onset of Covid-19: Virtually no change in valuations, dramatically reduced volume and dramatically less debt usage. The data tracking firm reported on transactions completed by 227 active private equity contributors in the […]