Financial Services

Our financial services sector team combines a broad range of experience across the insurance, life and pensions, banking and wealth management industries.

Members of our advisory team have worked in an operational, management or advisory capacity for a wide variety of companies in the sector, including:

1. The Enterprise Value to EBITDA* multiples on which comparable listed companies are trading

At the end of H2 2019, the global, all market average Enterprise Value to EBITDA multiple for listed Financial Services companies was 17.2x.† This was slightly down on the previous six months but up on the previous year, when listed Financial Services companies were trading on a multiple of 16.9x. Within the Financial Services sector, trading multiples varied between 14.6x and 24.4x across the range of sub-sectors. Smaller businesses generally traded on lower multiples.

* EBITDA is Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation
† Note, the Enterprise Value to EBITDA multiples above are for listed businesses. By comparison privately owned businesses are generally valued at a discount. Listed company data was accurate at 10/01/2020.

The average multiple† of EBITDA* paid globally in Financial Services transactions has fluctuated over the past few years. It currently stands at 10.6x. When reviewing these multiples we break out businesses in the range $5-150m, as they tend to have unique attributes which affect their valuation. 

* EBITDA is Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation
†Note, the transaction multiples above are calculated from raw historic data. This typically understates profits and therefore valuations actually achieved are generally at lower multiples of “normalised” profits.

In H2 2019, there were 1,594 transactions globally in the Financial Services sector. This is an increase on the preceding 6 months, when there were 1,370 transactions. Although slightly declining over the last few years, this uptick in the last 6 months suggests demand for Financial Services businesses remains fairly buoyant.

For further information as to how these valuations and statistics are computed, and their impact on your transaction, please contact us.