Online Media Mergers & Acquisitions Activity in 2007
In 2007, there were 615 merger, acquisition and capital raise transactions in the online sector of media. The 615 deals were comprised of 273 capital raises, representing almost half of the transactions in the sector, and 342 acquisitions involving a change of control.
Transaction Value by Sector
In 2007, there was $44.4 billion in reported deal value in the online media sectors covered by Peachtree Media Advisors, Inc.(see chart below). The split in deal value between consumer and business was virtually equal. Transactions in the consumer sector totaled $10.8 billion, representing 24.3% of all reported transaction value, and online business services totaled $11.0 billion, or 24.7% of total reported transaction value.
The Search, Analytics and Ad Serving category represented the sector with the highest level of reported transaction value in 2007. Activity in this sector was driven by deals such as Microsoft’s acquisition of Tellme Networks, Inc., Cisco’s Acquisition of Web Ex, Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick, Yahoo’s acquisition of Right Media, and Omniture’s acquisition of Visual Sciences.
As seen in the chart below, reported Commerce transaction value totaled $10.2 billion in 2007, representing 22.9% of total transaction value for the year. This sector was led by Expedia’s spin out from IAC, eBay’s acquisition of StubHub, Providence Equity Partner’s acquisition of NexTag and Kayak’s merger with SideStep.
