Public Markets
The FOCUS Communications Service Provider Index (CSPI) rebounded strongly from the steep decline in our spring report to post a gain of 10.4% in the past three months. Even so, this period’s gains still did not erase all of the losses from the spring. In addition, the CSPI also significantly underperformed both the 20.0% gain in the S&P 500 and the 30.6% gain in the NASDAQ over the corresponding time period. The sector also underperformed the broader indices for the full year as the year-over-year loss of 3.3% in the CSPI compares unfavorably to both the 5.4% gain in the S&P 500 and the 25.6% gain in the NASDAQ. Sector multiples are largely consistent with where they were a year ago. The sector revenue multiple dipped slightly from 2.8x to 2.7x, while the sector EBITDA multiple held steady at 7.8x.
