A bevy of brokers and bankers enlivens NEPA conference.

The recent sale of Kennedy Information, which only four years ago had only $2 million in revenue, to the Bureau of National Affairs Inc. (BNA) for a staggering $47.7 million, was among the hot topics at the breaks at the NEPA conference in Miami.

There was some surprise that the fiscally conservative BNA would pay such a high premium for the newsletter-conference- information firm. The consensus was that BNA, with its huge cash war chest, views this as an important stragegic move, particularly with the decision of the two principals, Wayne and Marshall Cooper, to remain on board.

Few anticipate that future deals will be as lucrative for the sellers as the Kennedy transaction. Many feel that acquisition prices have peaked and that multiples paid for most newsletter and information firms in the future will be more realistic.

Yet, there was no shortage of bankers and brokers, with eight at the conference interested in meeting with potential buyers and sellers of newsletter/specialized information properties.

Andrew Jacobson, managing director of technology, media and information services at MCG Capital, a specialty finance company, was a co-chairman of the conference (along with Dani Levinas, who recently sold Georgetown Publishing House to Wicks Business Information). Accompanying Jacobson was his colleague Jon Slabaugh, a cofounder of MCG.

And one of the featured speakers was Jeffrey Dearth, partner at the media investment banking firm of DeSilva & Phillips and an internet "pioneer" who spoke on the topic "Publishers and the Internet: Challenges and Opportunities for the New Millennium." Dearth attended with his colleague Richard Huttner.

Others included Gene Simonoff, who has brokered a number of deals in recent years, along with regular attendees at NEPA meetings, Mark Young of Citizens Bank in Boston and Dwight Johnson of Berkery, Noyes & Co. in New York City.

A newcomer to the broker ranks was Richard Gibbons of the Washington office of the van Tulleken Company. Gibbons has been involved in the newsletter industry for more than 25 years and was the publisher at Capital Publications in Arlington, Virginia, until all of the components of the company were finally sold by the publishing giant Pearson.