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Dun & Bradstreet releases its 'India's Top 500 Companies 2021’ list

Carlo Allegri/ReutersIn a speech at the Billboard Women in Music event this month, Swift called private equity's influence in the music industry a "potentially harmful force."<ul class="summary-list"><li>These 13 private equity deals showcased powerful trends that will shape the industry in the new year, according to conversations with dozens of insiders. </li><li>The deals highlighted the emergence of private equity firms banding together more frequently to cover the equity check of a target company, as well as the increased scrutiny of the PE industry in public discourse. </li><li>"It's going to continue to be a challenging environment for [PE firms] to get good returns on the money they are investing," said Brian Hamilton, a private equity partner at law firm Sullivan &amp; Cromwell.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime">Click here for more BI Prime stories</a>. </li></ul>2019 was the year some US politicians put the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-warrens-war-on-private-equity-is-great-news-for-lobbyists">private equity industry in their crosshairs</a>. And on the deal front, there was plenty of high-profile action to draw attention. From huge deals in terms of size, to smaller ones that provoked celebrities' wrath, we wanted to find out which transactions this year should be remembered for. We gathered as much from conversations Business Insider struck up in emails, phone calls, and sit-downs with dozens of PE execs and their advisers in recent months. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the dialogue naturally tended to drift toward the largest deals by volume.This included Blackstone's $18.7 billion acquisition of logistics assets from GLP - <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-03/blackstone-buys-18-7-billion-u-s-property-assets-from-glp">a deal underscoring a bet that more companies like Amazon will use warehouse storage</a> - and EQT Partners' $10 billion purchase of Nestle's skin health care unit, which created a huge new dermatology company called Galderma. But apart from sheer size, there were notable trends in how firms approached deals. One that emerged as top-of-mind for lawyers, bankers, and PE execs was the fact that multiple PE firms were increasingly banding together to cover the equity check of their target companies. These so-called club deals were once popular in the lead-up to the financial crisis and observers said they were noticing a comeback, signaling a certain frothiness to the market. Some recent deals included the <a href="https://pitchbook.com/newsletter/consortium-completes-69b-deal-for-dun-bradstreet">$6.9 billion purchase of New Jersey commercial data provider Dun &amp; Bradstreet</a>, bought by a group of investors led by CC Capital, as well as the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-25/buyout-firms-pension-funds-to-buy-inmarsat-for-7-21-a-share">$3.4 billion acquisition of satellite company Inmarsat</a> by Warburg Pincus, Apax, CPPIB, and Ontario Teachers Pension Plan.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bane-carlyle-team-up-in-rare-private-equity-deal-2019-7/commerce-on-business-insider">'Some of the conversations we had in 2006 we are having again': Bain and Carlyle are teaming up in rare deal that private equity has been reluctant to do since the financial crisis</a>But the more owners of a company there are, the more difficult a company can be to manage, especially in the event of a downturn when there can be disagreements about how to right the ship amid waning sales.At the same time, the emergence of such deals signals the challenging nature of PE dealmaking: that prices for companies are getting higher and higher and firms are teaming up with competitors to put investor money to work."There is just not a lot of easy stuff left and there is so much money chasing deals," said Brian Hamilton, a private equity partner at Sullivan &amp; Cromwell whose clients have included Silver Lake and Goldman Sachs."It's going to continue to be a challenging environment for [PE firms] to get good returns on the money they are investing," he said.Other insiders also were quick to note that club deals today were often confined to only two or three major buyers, as opposed to five or six that marked the 2000s. They also said that the terms of such deals were carefully structured so that the governance of an acquired company would be well-organized in the case of a downturn."There is a lot more thought put into that governance," said Brenda Rainey, a consultant at Bain &amp; Co, noting that PE execs were trying to reach consensus on who was in the driver's seat on actions to take with the business post-close.Nevertheless, the more private equity firms are getting involved in leveraged buyouts, the more their business practices are expected to come under scrutiny in 2020, says Tom Whelan, a PE partner at McDermott Will &amp; Emery. Whelan, whose clients have included Fortress and General Atlantic, said that the "the ability of the larger funds to club together to buy substantial, listed companies" - and their resulting "economic firepower" - naturally draws the attention of politicians and other stakeholders concerned about how target companies will be affected."Sponsors should be mindful of the need to demonstrate as part of any large bid that they are a force for good as an owner, whether through good governance, good citizenship, or through job and wealth creation," he said.Publicity, however, is not only a factor in multi-billion dollar deals.In fact, some off the smaller deals throughout the year got the most press attention and pointed to some of the biggest trends in PE. It was a more than $300 million minority stake The Carlyle Group took in Ithaca Holdings that financed talent manager Scooter Braun's purchase of Big Machine Label, which drew the ire of country-pop music icon Taylor Swift.Swift, whose music is owned by Big Machine Label and was bought by Braun as a result of the deal, objected to the transaction and called out Carlyle in helping Braun acquire the rights to her music.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/private-equity-giant-carlyles-approach-to-music-deals-2019-7">Private-equity giant Carlyle just used an unusual approach to clinch a big-time music deal with Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift</a>In a speech at the Billboard Women in Music event this month, Swift called private equity's influence in the music industry "a potentially harmful force" and that firms were "buying up our music as if it is real estate." The kerfuffle, which started over the summer, gave politicians new material to criticize the PE industry, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/aoc-defends-singer-taylor-swift-and-condemns-private-equity-firms-2019-11">piling onto the discourse</a>, holding up the dispute as an indictment on the "predatory" nature of the industry.Other types of smaller PE deals, meanwhile, pointed to less potentially controversial trends - namely, that firms are targeting smaller companies, and sometimes settling for minority stakes. For instance, Blackstone launched a whole division focused on growth equity, seeking deals of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-exec-behind-new-blackstone-unit-fast-growing-companies-2019-11">between $200 million to $500 million</a>. And Goldman Sachs, one of the lead investment banks advising private equity, is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-has-finalized-its-middle-market-private-equity-team-2019-11">assembling a team of senior bankers focused on the middle-market</a>. With both big and small PE deals taken into consideration, below are some of private equity's highlights from 2019.

Private equity had a slew of mega deals in 2019, and many ruffled a few feathers along the way. Here are 13 that showcase the industry's massive reach.

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;language=en&amp;ref_site=photo&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;version=llv1&amp;anyorall=all&amp;safesearch=1&amp;use_local_boost=1&amp;autocomplete_id=&amp;searchterm=asteroid&amp;show_color_wheel=1&amp;orient=&amp;commercial_ok=&amp;media_type=images&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchtermx=&amp;photographer_name=&amp;people_gender=&amp;people_age=&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;people_number=&amp;color=&amp;page=1&amp;inline=297359225">Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock</a></div></div></div><ul><li>Big marketers are facing a crisis, according to Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the Interactive <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">Advertising</keyword> Bureau.</li><li>Small and mid-sized brands, driven by data and digital marketing, are throttling growth for nearly every major consumer category.</li><li>Giants like Procter &amp; Gamble and Unilever once had huge advantages in owning their own supply chains and shelf space in national retailers. Now those advantages are liabilities.</li><li>These companies need to shift their models to direct-to-consumer businesses ASAP or risk being disrupted.</li><li>Traditional <keyword id="6354777" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Media">media</keyword> companies also need to adapt quickly to this new reality or they'll get left behind.</li></ul> Every industry is under attack from upstarts. Most big companies aren't prepared for a new tech and data-driven economy. Consumers don't care about big brands and are tuning out traditional advertising. In a nutshell, traditional marketers are screwed. And traditional media companies aren't much better off. It's all Warby Parker's fault.These are just some of the stark takeaways being presented by Randall Rothenberg, CEO and president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which is hosting its <a href="https://www.iab.com/iab-annual-leadership-meeting-2018/">annual leadership event this week in Palm Springs, California.</a>Rothenberg plans to warn attendees that the marketing and media industries are in the midst of tectonic change, the likes of which has not been seen since the industrial revolution rocked the US agriculture economy more than a century ago. Yes, the situation is that dire, he said.In fact, the IAB's new research report, The Rise of the 21st Century Brand, opens with the cheery subject: "Brand Growth in Crisis."The big takeaway from Rothenberg's speech is that basically every single condition and dynamic that traditional marketing companies had been able to count on to protect their dominance over the past several decades has been upended.<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/warby-parker-ceo-and-founder-podcast-success-how-i-did-it-2017-4">Take the much-celebrated Warby Parker. </a>It's built a huge business by cutting out expensive distribution and marketing costs, and selling glasses directly to consumers for way cheaper than they've been used to at incumbents like Lenscrafters. Rothenberg's point is that there are Warby Parker's in every industry.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Business Insider</div></div></div><h2>There are Warby Parkers and Caspers everywhere</h2>Indeed, this new breed of marketers don't own their own supply chains, or raw materials or shelf space. They don't need to.An out of nowhere cosmetics company (like <a href="https://www.glossier.com/products?gclid=EAIaIQobChMItue4gdig2QIVgV6GCh2T6wuwEAAYASAAEgIOzvD_BwE">Glossier</a>) or <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/daily-harvest-smoothie-subscription-box-review">frozen food maker</a> or specialized craftsman can make goods without having to own a factories or trucking routes, or needing to hire a giant ad agency and buy massive media campaigns. They don't have to get shelf space at Wal-mart either.They can sell to people on Instagram for a fraction of what marketing used to cost. And they can collect data on these consumers, track what they buy, what they love and hate about the experience, and market to them directly much more effectively.It's the direct consumer relationships, and the use of consumer data, that is completely game-changing for the marketing world. And most big marketers, such as Procter &amp; Gamble and Unilever, are not ready for this new reality, the IAB says.<h2>Putting it all together</h2>In a lot of ways, this sentiment won't be a huge surprise to many in the ad industry. They've seen ad conference darlings like Casper and Warby Parker make inroads in their respective industries. Their heads turned when consumer product giant Unilever spent <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/07/19/unilever-buys-dollar-shave-club-for-1-billion/">$1 billion in 2016 for Dollar Shave Club</a>, and when an <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/17/procter-gamble-says-activist-investor-nelson-peltz-lost-board-seat-bid-by-around-6-million-votes.html">activist investor took on Procter &amp; Gamble </a>for moving too slowly - in its eyes - to adjust to these new realities.And of course, the ongoing <keyword id="6354851" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Retail">retail</keyword> Apocalypse - exemplified by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sears-store-photos-2017-7">classic American brands like Sears</a> - is of top of mind for most marketers.What the IAB is attempting with this report is to quantify these changes, and put them in context. And what the trade group found is that the upstart direct brands phenomenon is carving up nearly every traditional ad category, and collectively is impacting the economy."We pulled together a lot of things that are staring everyone in the face, and we backed that up with lots of data," Rothenberg told Business Insider.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">IABIAB president/CEO Randall Rothenberg</div></div></div>For example, the IAB report shows that outside of health care and technology, few Fortune 500 companies are growing. For example:<ul><li>the 45 retailers in this category grew just 2.1% from 2014 through 2016.</li><li>Apparel companies grew just .5% during that time period.</li><li>Household products companies actually contracted by .3%</li></ul>Keep in mind, all this has been happening as the US economy has been hitting its stride.To help bolster the IAB's research, the organization worked with Dun &amp; Bradstreet, which has compiled a massive database of 290 million business records from the majority of commercial entitles in the US. The two groups have put together "IAB 250 Powered by Dun &amp; Bradstreet," which is essentially a compilation of the 250 most important brands driving this change - everything from Wal-mart's Jet.com to the subscription pet brand BarkBox to the luggage startup Away Travel.This list is very much the opposite of the<a href="http://adage.com/article/datacenter/leading-national-advertisers-index/106348/"> Ad Age 200</a>, which traditionally compiles the list of biggest spending advertisers, such as P&amp;G, General Motors, Pepsi and McDonald's."We think we're proving that the center of growth is shifting permanently," he said. "This is basically as significant as the change from the agrarian economy to industrial. Every function you used to need to own you can get off shelf."<h2>Big brands are being nibbled to death</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">IABThe cosmetics brand Glossier built its name on Instagram</div></div></div>A perfect example of this point is GilletteAccording to the IAB report, Gillette's share of the US men's-razors business fell to 54% in 2016, from 70% in 2010. Dollar Shave Club and Harry's combined US share rose to 12.2%, from 7.2% in 2015.Another good example is the pet food category, which per the IAB is expected to grow 4.4% in 2018. Which isn't bad. But upstarts like the subscription pet product company The Farmers Dog is averaging 40-50% revenue growth monthly, says the report.This is happening everywhere, said Rothenberg. As recently as 1992, 96% of shopping happened in stores. By 2015 9.4% was happening on the web.In 2016, small and medium-sized consumer packaged goods manufacturers together represented 64% of sales, up from 39% in 2015."Big brands are being nibbled to death," said Rothenberg.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">IABMarketers like Procter &amp; Gamble are being nibbled to death</div></div></div>Rothenberg warned that too many people in the marketing industry have treated companies like Casper and Warby Parker as "really interesting curiosities," while not recognizing the collective impact these types of firms have on industries. "They are representative of transcendent change for the consumer economy itself," he said. <h2>There's only one thing big marketers can do</h2>You might think that giant marketers can easily strike back, given their deep pockets. But many are actually strapped by their legacy businesses. For example, owning stores, massive supply chains and logistics right as people pull away from traditional in-store shopping is actually a huge liability at the moment, Rothenberg argued."There's only strategy," he said. "Become direct." Easier said that done. 38% of companies tracked by the global intelligence firm International Data Corporation are not selling direct to consumer at all, said the IAB's report. "Most are lagging," said Rothenberg.<h2>This has big implications for media companies. And it could be bad news for TV</h2>Given the massive changes hitting consumer industries, selling attention - or loads of ad impressions - matters a lot less than the old days of mass marketing advertising. To help direct-to-consumer brands, media companies that used to just sell ad space need to prove they can help companies acquire customers. That's a big change. Right now, driving customer acquisition is a strength for digital media giants like Google and Facebook. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/olympic-streaming-shows-data-on-digital-tv-audiences-is-hard-to-track-2018-2">Not so much for network television</a>, which has long relied on the biggest national advertisers, not the Glossiers or Caspers of the world. A company like Dollar Shave Club built its name via a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI">cheap web video ad</a>, not a slick TV commercial."You can't rely on the top 250 brands anymore," said Rothenberg. "Media companies that do, they're in trouble."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">The IABCompanies like Dollar Shave Club rely less on traditional media</div></div></div> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bud-light-dilly-dilly-viral-commercial-super-bowl-campaign-2017-12">What 'Dilly Dilly' means - and how Bud Light came up with its viral campaign</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

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