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Lack Of Finance Meant Fewer Media Deals In ‘08: Report

Call it crash 2.0. The value of European media M&A activity shrunk by two thirds last year as finance dried up, a PriceWaterhouseCoopers report (via FT.com) says. The number of deals shrunk from 178 to 135, the value down 66 percent to €17 billion. The UK saw 43 deals, down from 75 the year before, their value down a whopping 85 percent to €4 billion. Report author Olivier Wolf (via FT.com): “A shortage of available debt and disparity between buyers’ and sellers’ price expectations combined to leave the media sector short of the larger deals seen recently.” Cases in point: RBI’s abandoned sell-off and Tiscali’s protracted auction. FT.com paints the picture with an even blacker brush, reminding us Trinity Mirror (LSE: TNI), Johnston Press and Mecom dropped out of the FTSE 250 in December.

Feb 4, 2009 12:36 PM ET
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Posted In: Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Mergers & Acquisitions

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