The direct marketing community racked up 208 transactions valued at more than $33 billion, including mergers, acquisitions and capital injections, according to investment fir Petsky Prunier LLC.
That total more than doubles the level of $14.6 billion seen in first-half 2006, and even exceeds the $31.2 billion recorded for the entire year.
“2007 will be a record year,” said Michael Petsky, partner of Petsky Prunier, in a statement. “Buyers are paying up with support from equity and lending markets. CEOs are expressing confidence in their business plans and want to further push the top-line to ensure their competitive strength.”
The largest transactions during the first six months of 2007 included the acquisition of Alliance Data Systems by Blackstone for nearly $8 billion; Microsoft’s pending deal for AQuantive for almost $5.5 billion; Google’s agreement to buy Doubleclick from Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity for more than $3 billion; Hellman & Friedman’s own deal to acquire Catalina Marketing for $1.7 billion; the $2.8 billion transaction between private equity firm Silver Lake Partners and data provider Acxiom; data provider Equifax’s completed acquisition of Talx; and Informa’s acquisition of market intelligence provider Datamonitor.
While 130 strategic buyers made up 62% of all transactions, compared with 78 private equity firms, the private equity deals tended to be larger. Each group accounted for just over $16 billion in deals.
Network
