Digital Media M&A Update, Q1 2016

Solganick & Co. Issues Its Latest Digital Media M&A Update for Q1 2016

April 2016 – Solganick & Co. has issued its latest Digital Media industry M&A Update for Q1 2016.  Below are the key highlights of the report:

• Overall M&A activity across the digital media industry remains robust YTD 2016. Several notable billion dollar deals were announced in Q1 2016, encompassing entertainment, media, and advertising industries, etc.
• In Q1 2016, the largest transaction in the Digital Media sector recorded for a total deal value of $3.5 bn was Dalian Wanda’s acquisition of Legendary Entertainment. It’s the largest cross border culture acquisition in history. Other prominent billion dollar acquisitions include Comscore’s acquisition of Rentrak, which reached a post money valuation of $1.2B.
• Within AdTech and Digital Marketing, the M&A environment remained favorable. In Q1, AdTech totaled 131 deals, capital invested amount to close to 3 billion in this sector alone. and in Digital Marketing, a total of 169 deals were recorded for a total deal value of 2.4 Billion, for a median deal size of $25.27 mm.

Digital Media M&A Drivers 2016

As the culmination of most of the trends of the past 5 years, there are several big trends that are happening this year in digital media.

Global Mobile: The rapid adoption of mobile devices and changes in communication and messaging is altering the shape of traditional business models. These new forms of communication and messaging are bringing new types of multichannel and multimedia content. For example, in the print market business model is changing because of the growing adoption of mobile devices, they are moving into creating new print requirement and opportunities such as mobile print solution and loud printing services. (source: Gartner) Mobile is everywhere and has bypassed desktop/laptops all together. Companies are starting to project brand DNA in mobile applications, and user experience has never been more critical.

Content Distribution: While content is still vitally important, content distribution becomes more critical than ever. Getting content onto the mobile devices of your audiences has become the next big frontier. Brands are experimenting new distribution platfoms like Snapchat, while other distribution platforms like Netflix is getting into content business. Such trends will continue grow in 2016, as music, video, movies, TV, photos, long-form articles, advertising will rise and fall with effective and efficient distribution.

Big Data Big Intelligence: Big data can be a big mess without an intelligence plan. Data needs to be turned into actionable business insights in order to truly aid decision-making. In addition to providing insights, such intelligence can drive content and distribution.

Virtual Reality: VR is becoming this year’s digital media headline story. We know Facebook acquired Oculus for $2 billion in 2014, but Oculus is not alone. Virtually all major consumer electronics giants will flood the market with millions of permium VR headset at price points that will drive adoption akin to the early days of game consoles. For major studios and the creative community in general, VR presents a tantalizing new mega-commercial opportunity to thrill consumers with new forms of story-telling, such as Jaunt, a bay-area company that closed a massive $65 million round of financing in 2015 from the likes of media giants Disney and ProSeiben, made the biggest splash on the creator side.

Over-the-Top Content and Multi-Platform Networks: Last year, NBC invested $200 million into Vox media and another $200 million in Buzzfeed, it went all-in with OTT. It also announced a stand-alone subscription service, Seeso in Jan, 2016. Another trend to look for is media companies move beyond YouTube into the land of Facebook and Snapchat. There’s gold in those mobile-first vertical hills populated by a particularly rabid and underserved digital-native customer base.

You can download the complete report here: Digital Media M&A Update (Q1 2016)

Solganick & Co. is a leading investment bank and M&A advisory firm focused exclusively on the technology and digital media industry sectors. For more information go to: www.solganickco.com

Internet and Digital Media M&A Update (January 2015)

Merger & acquisition deal values in digital media, information & technology rose 48% in 2014 compared with 2013. The aggregate total value of announced M&A deals rose to $224 billion in 2014 from $151 billion in 2013. There were approximately 2,240 acquisitions announced in digital media, information & technology last year -- up from 2,020 in 2013 -- and activity should continue to pick up in 2015.

Agency & marketing, information and digital content were the top three most active sectors last year, remaining steady from 2013 and 2012. Software, mobile, and digital content provided higher exit valuations in 2014. Announced deals in software represented $48 billion or 21.7% of the total -- up from $27 billion and 17.7% in 2013 -- followed by mobile, digital content and information, evenly distributed and each accounting for between 17.8% and 15.0% of the total.

Facebook's WhatsApp acquisition for $19.7 billion substantially increased the value of mobile M&A’s. While WhatsApp represents the largest deal, there were 48 M&A transactions above $1 billion in deal value last year, accounting for 61.9% of total reported deal value, compared with 34 transactions in 2013, accounting for 59.2% of total deal value. There were 28 deals in search and digital media sectors that included search, search engine optimization or paid-search marketing, and 178 deals categorized as digital agencies.

Google, Yahoo, Publicis, and WPP Groupe were the most active acquirers in 2014.

Overall, 2014 was an active year in the advertising technology sector, with 100 M&A transactions representing $7.5 billion in value, more than 3x the value of deals in 2013. Publicis Groupe's acquisition of digital agency Sapient for $3.7 billion was announced in November 2014. With advertisers wanting to use fewer vendors, we expect to see an increase of M&A activity around larger companies looking to gobble up smaller ones with specific services, as they attempt to become full-service providers.

The largest ad tech deal in 2014 was Alliance Data's $2.4 billion acquisition of Conversant, formerly known as ValueClick, an affiliate marketing firm that enables companies to personalize ads and target users based on previous Internet searches. Conversant's technology will become an extension of Alliance Data's loyalty marketing services capabilities.

Yahoo’s $640 million acquisition of video ad provider BrightRoll (Nov 2014) was another move into video advertising.

M&A will not slow in 2015. We see all of the economic elements for a strong M&A marketplace for 2015: an improving economy, strong balance sheets, low interest rates, current IPO filings and a rising stock market.

For the complete report go here: Internet and Digital Media M&A Update (January 2015)