NOVEMBER 2019 TMT M&A MONTHLY BRIEFING Further consolidation in the Telco industry

On 25 November, Switzerland based ticket e-seller Regent Assay’s View of the Month Viagogo acquired StubHub from eBay for $4.05 Fewer transactions resulted in a slowdown in the European billion. StubHub, which is headquartered in California, TMT M&A landscape this month. Despite continued is the world’s largest ticket marketplace. It enables consolidation among telecommunication giants, the overall people to buy and sell tickets online for over 10 deal value halved, dropping to $14.8bn, down from $28.8bn million live sport, music and theatre events, spanning last month. Moreover, the number of deals decreased by 44 countries. Its patented Fan Protect™ technology, 17%, but remained above the yearly average, at 318. The which offers a 360 virtual view of events location, slowdown in M&A activity was also reflected to some extent helps fan better choose their tickets by offering an in the multiples: the P/EBITDA lost one point, dropping from immersive pre-event shopping experience. StubHub 10.3 to 9.3; however, the P/SALES rose to 1.9, up from recorded 240 million unique visitors on its website last 1.6x. Listed tech companies continued to perform strongly: year alone, and generated total revenue of $1 billion. the FTSE techMark All-share index followed its ascendant path and easily surpassed the 4000-point threshold to settle Netherlands based telecommunications company, at 4113 pts. The EV/EBITDA ratio experienced a noticeable United Group, acquired Bulgaria headquartered, drop at the end of last month, only to overcome it and reach Vivacom, on 7 November, for $1.7 billion. United a ratio of 13x. Group, which is backed by PE firm BC Partners, is a leading multi-play telecoms and media provider in South East Europe, servicing over 20 million TMT Transactions in Europe inhabitants. Vivacom was the first telecom in Bulgaria source: Regent Assay, Capital IQ Number of Deals Value of Deals $b and is now a domestic industry leader, offering mobile (bar) (line) and fixed voice services, fibre optic internet and 400 40 digital TV. This acquisition further strengthens United 350 Group’s dominance in the region, having previously 300 acquired Tele2 Croatia back in May for $200 million. 250 200 20 150 In the telecom equipment sector, Netherlands-based 100 Altice Europe, through its subsidiary SFR FTTH, 50 agreed to purchase Covage, for $1.1 billion, on 24 0 0 Nov18 Jan19 Mar19 May19 Jul19 Sep19 Nov19 November. Covage is one of the largest fibre wholesale operators in France and a leading provider TMT Valuation Trends of Fibre to the Home (FTTH) and Fibre to the Office source: Regent Assay, Capital IQ (FTTO) carrier technology, with 46 fibre optic Price/EBITDA Price/Sales networks across France. The combination of SFR FTTH Ratio (dark blue) Ratio (light blue) and Covage will service a total of 8 million homes, an 14 2.5 additional 2.4 million to SFR FTTH’s existing portfolio. 12 2.0 The combined entity has committed to deploy fibre in 10 rural areas with little or no existing infrastructure. 1.5 8 Investment funds Cube Infrastructure and Partners 6 1.0 4 Group exited their respective participations in Covage. 0.5 2 0 0.0 On 17 November, The Sage Group plc divested its Nov18 Jan19 Mar19 May19 Jul19 Sep19 Nov19 payment processing business Sage Pay to Elavon Inc for $300m. Newcastle-based and FTSE listed Sage is a TechMark Index and Valuation Levels leading provider of software and cloud business source: Capital IQ management solutions to small and medium Index Level EV/EBITDA (dark blue) (light blue) businesses. Its payment gateway, Sage Pay, offers payment solutions to professionals through various 4200 14 channels (phone, online, face to face) by easily 4000 13 integrating with existing point-of-sale systems. US 3800 12 based Elavon, which operates in the same industry, is looking to increase its market share in the UK and 3600 11 Ireland through this acquisition. This is the second 3400 10 time this year Sage sells off a business division, 3200 9 having disposed of its Payroll Solutions to iSolved in January for $97m.

James Calvert Leo Bretelle Hana Glanville Managing Partner Analyst Business Dev Director [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

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