BUYER POOL ANALYSIS
Selling a Publishing to Individual / Owner-Operator buyers
Owner-operators, SBA-financed independent buyers, and smaller management buyouts. Pricing reflects what an individual can finance (typically 10-25% down + SBA 7(a)) and operate hands-on. Below typical PE engagement size.
Quick answers
- What multiple does this buyer pool pay?
- Median EV/EBITDA 10.67x across 7 disclosed deals (P25: 9.05x, P75: 15.79x). Median EV/Revenue 0.92x across 13 deals. Median deal value: $41.25M.
- How many disclosed transactions?
- 15 deals total (4 from 2018+), filtered to Individual / Owner-Operator acquirers of publishing businesses.
- Most active buyers
- Glacier Media Inc. (1) · Learn2.com, Inc. (:LTWO) (1)
Recent disclosed deals
Individual / Owner-Operator acquisitions of publishing businesses with named target, named acquirer, and disclosed financials.
| Year | Target | Acquirer | EV | EV/EBITDA | EV/Rev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | GVIC Communications Corp. | Glacier Media Inc. | $2.5M | 10.7x | 1.14x |
| 1999 | Street Technologies, Inc. | Learn2.com, Inc. (:LTWO) | $37.7M | — | 8.05x |
What this buyer pool prices for
Individual buyers — owner-operators, SBA-financed independents, smaller management buyouts — price for what they can finance (typically 10-25% down with SBA 7(a) loans up to $5M deal value) and operate hands-on. Multiples are below PE / strategic because the buyer is taking the owner-operator role, not stepping in as institutional capital. Owner-dependency and seasonality matter more here than to a PE buyer.
Methodology note
Multiples shown are computed from disclosed M&A transactions in the ExitValue.ai database, filtered to publishing businesses acquired by individual / owner-operator buyers. EV/EBITDA outliers outside the [0.5x, 60x] band and EV/Revenue outliers outside [0.05x, 25x] are excluded from medians. Where available, post-2018 transactions are weighted; otherwise the all-time sample is used. Deal counts shown reflect deals with disclosed financials only — total transaction count for this buyer pool is typically 2-3x larger. Full methodology
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