There are currently 6,090 total transactions across 674 SIC codes in the Mergerstat®/BVR Control Premium Study™ database.  Half of the deals have net sales less than $100 million, while the remaining half post net sales greater than $100 million.  The top 25 SIC codes include over half of the transactions (3,360), and according to the most recent calculation (July 2007), there were 770 deals in business services, 690 deals in depository institutions and 195 in the communications industry.  Over 80% of the transactions are 100% acquisitions.

These were just some of the statistics that came out of last week’s webinar, “Getting the Most from the Mergerstat/BVR Control Premium Study,” featuring Shannon Pratt, Alina Niculita, Rob Stutz, and BVR financial analyst Adam Manson.  A live poll also uncovered another interesting statistic: Most attendees (41%) use the database primarily to calculate a minority discount, while a quarter (25.6%) use it for the control premium and 10.3% use it for the valuation multiples—a lesser-known application of the database, Dr. Pratt pointed out.  (The remainder of attendees never used the database or were not appraisers.)  The panelists use the database for every valuation—and Pratt has even used comparables that were 100 times the size of his subject company, because they were most similar to the subject.  To conduct your own searches, click here.