Global media acquisition deals worth USD110bn in 2007

There were 838 media M&A deals across the world in 2007, which, in total, were worth USD110bn, according to the Jordan, Edmiston Group.

The research firm estimates that the number of deals increased 32% on 2006, and that the total amount involved in the transactions grew 79% on the year before. In the first half of the year , transactions worth USD75bn in total were announced. The research firm says there were fewer large deals in the second half of the year, due to the crisis in the credit markets. The online media market accounted for USD43bn worth of deals done in 2007.

There were 555 M&A deals involving online media or marketing companies during the year, with nearly all of the internet giants doing substantial deals. AOL, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft all bought ad networks or ad delivery firms during the last year.

Microsoft bought aQuantive for USD5.7bn, while Google announced its acquisition of DoubleClick for USD3.1bn. AOL and Yahoo! did smaller deals with ad networks: AOL bought Tacoda for USD275m, and the US search giant acquired Blue Lithium for USD300m.