While the number of mergers and acquisitions in the B2B Media & Technology space dipped 5 percent to 88 in 2016, the value of those deals soared 427 percent to $32.6 billion, thanks to a few key blockbuster deals, according to the Jordan, Edmiston Group's 2016 M&A Report.

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While the b2b media and technology sector saw just two more deals in the first nine months of 2016 over the same period in 2015 (77 versus 75), deal value is up a whopping 475 percent this year thanks to several mega deals, most notably Microsoft's $29.5 billion purchase of LinkedIn but also Informa's $1.6 billion purchase of Penton in September, according to JEGI's quarterly M&A Update.   

The B2B media and information industry let out a collective gasp last Thursday wen Informa announced that it intends to acquire Penton for a whopping $1.56 billion--what appears to be a 10x multiple. 

NEW YORK, September 15, 2016 – MidOcean Partners (“MidOcean”), a premier middle market private equity firm, and Wasserstein & Co. (“Wasserstein”), a leading independent private equity and investment firm, today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to sell Penton, an innovative professional information services company, to Informa plc (“Informa”) for $1.56 billion. The consideration will consist of $1.46 billion of cash (plus adjustments) and $100 million of Informa stock. Under MidOcean and Wasserstein ownership, Penton has been significantly transformed from predominantly a print business into a preeminent professional information services company. Penton has successfully completed 13 acquisitions, creating scaled positions in growth-oriented sectors—including agriculture, transportation, natural products/food, infrastructure, and industrial design/manufacturing sectors. Today, Penton has seven of the top 250 ...