Public Markets
Unfortunately the FOCUS Telecom Business Services Index (TBSI) was not immune from the storm that hit the capital markets this period. The sector plummeted 27.2% over the past three months, which significantly underperformed both the 20.0% drop in the S&P 500 and the 14.2% drop in the NASDAQ over the corresponding time period. The situation is similar for the full year period as the 9.1% drop in the TBSI was greater than the 8.8% and 0.4% drops in the S&P 500 and NASDAQ, respectively. Interestingly, the sector revenue multiple held steady compared to this same time last year at 0.4x. However, the EBITDA multiple for the sector fell precipitously from 9.2x a year ago to 6.6x currently.