Senior PE investors share outlook on the M&A market; key insights on content marketing industry; and an overview of H1 2014 M&A trends.

In this issue of JEGI’s Client Briefing Newsletter, senior private equity investors share their insights on the M&A market: they see a significant amount of debt and equity capital available, with historically high senior and mezzanine debt multiples in the market, and they expect the financing market to remain robust through the rest of this year. With the release of JEGI’s 1H 2014 M&A report, we are seeing mixed signals. While deal value increased 132% in the first half of 2014 vs. 1H 2013, it was driven by a small handful of multi-billion dollar deals, such as Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp. A full 83% of deal flow is under $50 million in size, and this continuing trend of small deals dominating the M&A market raises questions about the level of confidence that entrepreneurs, corporations and investors have in the current recovery and indicates a low tolerance for risk. In a highly competitive M&A market, with fewer $50+ million deals, JEGI continues to remain very active, with the recent sales of RKG, a search and digital agency, to Merkle, and Distimo, a mobile apps analytics company, to App Annie. As well, JEGI has several $50+ million transactions on track to close in the coming weeks. At the SIIA Strategic & Financial Investment Conference on June 18th in NYC, JEGI Co-President Scott Peters and Director Sam Barthelme provided the opening keynote presentation, discussing the importance of content, as well as the rise of mobile as a leading consumption channel. Their well-received presentation is summarized in the article titled “The Content Connection” in this edition of the Client Briefing. JEGI is also pleased to announce that Joseph Sanborn, a senior software and technology M&A banker, has joined the firm as Managing Director, Head of Technology. For more information about this newsletter or JEGI’s services, contact JEGI’s Chief Marketing Officer Adam Gross at 212-754-0710 or adamg@jegi.com.

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